DARPA is requesting proposals for a new kind of UCAV that will be start test flights as soon as 2012 in order to be deployed in the next years. The program is called Next Generation Close Air Support aircraft and as its name suggest its role will be to provide air support to land forces, a role that today is filled by A-10s, F-16s or similar aircraft. Because of the short term nature of the program DARPA will consider both bespoke unmanned aircraft and converted versions of human piloted aircraft. The specialized A-10 will probably form a good candidate and you can see a preview in this altered photo above.

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Robonaut is a joint-developed program between NASA and General Motors. The aim is to develop a humanoid robot that could be use alongside humans and perform similar tasks in a critical environment. In the image above is the second iteration, the Robonaut2 or R2. The main focus is the arms and hands, R2 can handle basic tools and can reach, lift and hold a weight of up to 9kg, more than most humans can.

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'Living with Robots' is a small 8min documentary about robots and especially Asimo that Honda presented in the Sundance Film festival. Asimo is the most advanced and probably most popular humanoid robot in the world. Humanoid (or bipedal) robots are a very difficult task because of their inherently unstable form. However if someday a robot is to be used alongside humans in our environment and homes it should have similar to human form in order to adapt to our living environment.

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The Coyote is an expendable air launched UAV designed by Advanced Ceramics Research (now a subsidiary of BAE Systems). It was initially developed from US Navy's Office of Naval Research and it could be used in military applications and atmospheric and climate scientific research missions. The Coyote is packaged in a cartridge and it is launched by air like a Sonobuoy from a P-3 ASW aircraft. It is deployed with a help of a parachute and when fully retracted it has a wingspan of 1.47m. It weighs 5.9kg and has a useful payload of 0.9kg.It can fly for almost an hour.

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Aeronautic Defense systems is going to start production in Israel of its Dominator II UAV after a trouble-free test program of the prototype aircraft. The Dominator II is based on the very successful Diamond DA42 4-seater. Aeronautics removes the pilot and passenger compartment and replaces it with the surveillance and communication and control equipment for its new role as a medium-class UAV. This takes the highly popular tactic of using man-rated components to the next level by using a converted manned aircraft.

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This small quadcopter called AR.Drone could be the killer app for small commercial drones. Since it appeared on the internet and at CES/Las Vegas some days ago it created a huge buzz and even without a price or a availability date everybody seem to want one. In this post there is a general description and (if possible) a first general validation of the actual product and its possible effects.

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Swarm Intelligence is a very hot topic and these micro robots should be a very good swarm programming and behavior practice. They called ' formica ' and they are the collaboration of Rob Spanton, Steve English, Alexis Johnson, Jo Sun and Jeff Gough. The robot itself is as simple as possible. It uses two small motors, converted mobile phone vibrators and two wire 'skis'. It can steer by differential motor movement. It has a MSP430F2254 microcontroller for calculations, three IR LED/Photodiode phototransistors with multi-frequency FSK modem scheme for communications and it uses down-looking IR photoreflective sensor to observe their environment.They can also recharge by themselves throu an exposed wire that they can attach to a charging rail.

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Quadcopters are a very popular UAV airframe because of they are a very stable hovering platform and an easy to work architecture. This micro quadcopter weighs only 15 gr and it is a university project. It uses a 6doF IMU with 2 gyros (a dual axis IDG-500 and a single axis ISZ-500) and a 3-axis ADXL330 accelerometer. Their data is processed through a Kalman filter. The main feature of this quadcopter is the use of the main (and only pcb) as the frame of the aircraft where the 4 motors are mounted. It is a very simple concept and could be potentially very cheap, especially if mass-produced.

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All Japan Micromouse Robot Competition is a robotics competition that takes place for 30 years with almost no-change in rules. The concept is to place autonomous robots inside a maze. The robots will explore the maze in order to map it and then they do performance runs from the entry to the center and the faster micro-robot wins. Last year the winner run the maze in 6.4 seconds and this year in the 30th contest the TETRA micro-mouse (pictured above) by Kato-san did a test run in only 4,7" although in the actual competition it disqualified.

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