One of the most attention grabbing concepts in the recent AUVSI symposium (the biggest in the UAV community) was the VARIOUS by Lockheed. Its name must be one of the most elaborate (or silly) and stands for "VTOL Advanced Reconnaissance Insertion Organic Unmanned System". As its name suggests it is a VTOL aircraft that can perform various missions and can be operated from sea vessels. Its main technology point is the fan in wing (or vertifan) that allow it to take off and land vertically.

The Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies have published an extensive analysis on the history of UAVs in the US armed forces. The author of the report is Dr. Thomas P. Ehrhard and the 88 page document covers in detail a very wide spectrum, from the first efforts in the late '50s until the recent UCAV concepts.

The Sky-Y is a medium altitude long endurance (MALE) technology demonstrator UAV by Alenia. It is design and developed in-house in-order to gain expertise in this sector. Sky-Y is similar in dimensions with the established Predator A which is already in use by the Italian Air Force.

Military UAVs is a booming sector and more and more companies (and countries) are entering this field first as users and manufacturers. Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) started this MALE (medium altitude long endurance) UAV program 6 years ago. Three prototypes will be constructed in order to evaluate and gain experience in the design, manufacturing and using such a complete system. The TIHA is similar to a Predator A tactical UAV. It weighs 1,5t and has a wingspan of 17m. It has a reciprocating engine that drives a pushing propeller and with 250kg of fuel has an 24h endurance while cruising at over 75kts.

Festo is a gigantic industrial control and automation company that in the last few years have impressed the world with its bionic network robots. These robots have many forms, some mimic the shape and movement of animals (like AirPenguin and AquaPenguin, read below) and other more abstract and modular like the molecubes modular robotic system pictured above. What makes Festo's robots distinctive is that they are very attractive entities aesthetically and functionally with a grace in movement usually absent in most robotic applications. They are designed as final products or advanced promotional items and although they are very advanced they don't share the semi-finished mess that characterizes the appearance of most research robots.

On March 23 the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs from USA organized a hearing entitled "Rise of the Drones: Unmanned Systems and the Future of War". The main subject as the title implies was the rising importance of unmanned systems (aerial, ground robots etc) in current warfare around the world and also their potential role in the future.
Although the hearing is mainly under a US point of view, these issues are global and the speakers illustrate the situation very accurately and from many aspects.

Tadano is a Japanese company that produces cranes and construction machinery. Last year the company celebrated its 60th birthday with a four leg robotic crane with two arms. The Robot is called Robotops.

Sea Perch is probably the easiest way to build your own underwater ROV. It is an evolution from a design featured in the book "Build Your Own Under Water Robot and Other Wet Projects" by Harry Bohm and Vickie Jensen further developed from MIT Sea Grant program. Its design is fully open and it can be constructed easily with simple and cheap materials.

The small UAV in the photo above that looks like a flying saucer is the Embler demonstrator from the AESIR UAS company. UK-based AESIR originates from the GFS Projects, a small start-up from Geoff Hatton (GFS stands for Geoff's Flying Saucers). Its core product is air vehicles that take advantage of the Coanda Effect in order to produce a stable and practical VTOL UAV that can hover and navigate even inside buildings.