Today on In Case You Missed It: A new company called BAE Systems is touting its Laser Developed Atmospheric Lens tech, which aims to use particles in the atmosphere to make a big magnifying glass. They admit we are many years from actual applica...
How do you defend yourself against laser weapons when they fire at the speed of light? BAE Systems has an idea. It's developing Laser Developed Atmopsheric Lens technology that, as the name suggests, uses lasers to temporarily ionize the atmosphere t...
Just over 18 months after making its video debut, the Navy's electromagnetic railgun has a manufacturer. BAE Systems -- known for e-ink-powered tank camouflage, autonomous spiderbots and machine-gun-mounted lasers -- won the government contract and hopes to have phase-two prototypes ready "as early as next year." While the current design is capable of firing one shot, the Office of Navy Research hopes for six to ten shots per minute. If that doesn't scare you, consider this: The pulse-driven projectiles travel at Mach 6 and can hit targets over 100 nautical miles away. Don't worry, it's not too late to rethink that career of sailing the high seas as a pirate and get to work on that accounting degree instead.
It's been three years since we first heard about DARPA's ARGUS-IS, but thanks to a PBS Nova special entitled "Rise of the Drones," we finally have more information about the 1.8-gigapixel camera that is supposedly the highest-resolution surveillance system in the world. The documentary showed video footage of the imaging system in action, though the camera itself remains shrouded in mystery for security reasons. Designed to be used with UAVs like the Predator, the ARGUS-IS (which stands for Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance - Imaging System) can spot a six-inch object within a ten square mile radius from 20,000 feet in the air. As shown in the clip after the break, the high-res cam doesn't quite reveal facial features, but you can spot details like a bird flying around a building and the color of someone's clothes.
The video goes on to reveal that the camera's internals are actually a collection of 368 sensors that are identical to the ones found in 5-megapixel smartphones. But the ARGUS-IS wouldn't be much without the processing power of the platform behind it. We're not entirely sure how this is done, but the camera allegedly streams around 1 million terabytes (that's an exabyte, folks) of video, which adds up to roughly 5,000 hours of HD footage per day. Thankfully, there's software that helps guys on the ground filter through the mass of data. As seen in the image above, it lets them track moving objects with up to 65 simultaneous windows. The military potential here is obvious, but DARPA is keeping mum on any future implementations of the ARGUS-IS -- or if it's been in use all this time.
BAE Systems' ASTRAEA isn't a new concept -- the company's been playing up its unmanned potential for quite some time now -- but it's all seeming entirely less pie-in-the-sky now that the Farnborough Airshow has kicked off. Typically, UAVs are thought to be smaller, drone-type apparatuses; these things are typically used in military exercises where remote gunfire or reconnaissance is required. Clearly, it's about time someone asked the obvious: "Why?" Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal, Engineering Director Systems and Strategy, Military Air and Information at BAE and ASTRAEA Program Director recently spoke at the aforesaid event, noting that this particular aircraft could "open up a new market." He continued: "Current search and rescue aircraft are limited by human endurance, however with a UAV there's no reason why they can't stay up for weeks." Sadly, he also affirmed that there aren't any plans to ship actual humans up in the air without a pilot onboard, but if you're rich and mettlesome enough to pull it off yourself... well, be sure to send us the video. Also, Godspeed.
BAE Systems revealed that it's working on hardy, high-capacity solar cells that could power unmanned vehicles and even attach to an individual soldier's gear. According to Darren Buckle, a manager from BAE Systems' Advanced Technology Center, the cells are geared toward smaller, often airborne, military units, where weight is at a premium. The system, still in the development stage, could offer up power for heavy endurance unmanned air vehicles, provided the cells are made sensitive enough to absorb energy in less sunny situations -- something that the company's England-based engineers are currently contending with.
Just in case GPS and GLONASS didn't make for enough of an acronym soup, BAE Systems wants to add one more to the navigation broth. NAVSOP (Navigation via Signals of Opportunity) uses some of the basic concepts we know from cell tower triangulation and WiFi location-finding to lock down a position, but goes much further to geolocate from nearly anything that pushes out a signal, such as nearby radios and TVs. It doesn't even need to know what kind of signal it's looking at, and it can get its position in places there's no GPS to work from, whether it's in an urban canyon or the natural kind. BAE is most excited about the prospects of ending GPS jamming against soldiers and UAVs, once and for all: not only is the new technology mostly impervious to attempts to block its signal, it can use the jamming attempt itself to get the position fix. Thankfully, the company's roots in defense aren't precluding use for civilians, so there's a chance that future smartphones might never have to use guesswork to get their bearings -- provided that governments around the world sign off on the idea, that is.
Today on In Case You Missed It: A new company called BAE Systems is touting its Laser Developed Atmospheric Lens tech, which aims to use particles in the atmosphere to make a big magnifying glass. They admit we are many years from actual applica...
How do you defend yourself against laser weapons when they fire at the speed of light? BAE Systems has an idea. It's developing Laser Developed Atmopsheric Lens technology that, as the name suggests, uses lasers to temporarily ionize the atmosphere t...
