Unmanned aerial vehicle

“ UAVs offer great promise to meet the needs of both science and industry for airborne sensing and imaging in a cost-effective manner while alleviating the constraints of mission duration, altitude and flight over inhospitable terrain faced by aircraft with on-board crew. Such long-duration, high-altitude UAVs can be flown on upper-atmospheric science missions to collect data and images that could help scientists identify and monitor environmental and climatic changes. ”

“ Disrupt control of the unmanned aircraft system or unmanned aircraft, without prior consent, including by disabling the unmanned aircraft system or unmanned aircraft by intercepting, interfering, or causing interference with wire, oral, electronic, or radio communications used to control the unmanned aircraft system or unmanned aircraft. ”

“ How the mission will be accomplished: AeroVironment will fly the Pathfinder-Plus on this mission, which was designed to demonstrate the potential commercial applications of UAVs. The solar-powered airplane will fly back and forth across the plantation in precision patterns while special cameras capture and transmit images of the ripening coffee to field managers on the ground. The aircraft’s camera/imaging equipment takes overlapping swaths of imagery, which will help harvesters locate the ripest coffee fields. ”

“ The national security space sector may use both manned and unmanned launch systems as determined by specific mission requirements. Payloads will be distributed among launch systems and launch sites to minimize the impact of loss of any single launch system or launch site on mission performance. The DOD will procure unmanned launch vehicles or services and maintain launch capability on both the East and West coasts. ”

“ But the last year or so have brought many improvements in airplane construction and it has been found possible to build a machine which can not only carry the heavy photographic apparatus and a couple of machine guns, but which can also travel at a good speed and climb fast enough to escape from the anti-aircraft guns. Instead of the rather helpless, clumsy, slow-flying reconnaissance machines of the early part of the war, we now have powerful “aerial dreadnaughts,” which no longer need to run away, but can stay and fight it out when they are interrupted in the course of their air duties. ”

“ When, some five years ago, work on this annual was first commenced, the military aviator was an idle dream. Fighting men in dirigibles were a bare possibility; but nothing more than that. Every amateur building an aeroplane (or even merely intending to build one) in his back garden was a possible "conqueror of the air." The aeroplane was going to oust the motor car as a sporting vehicle—everyone was quite certain about that! Beyond that, nothing!
To-day everything is completely changed and except as a war machine the aeroplane is of little interest or use to anyone. ”

“ Motor-mounted anti-aircraft weapons, however, have not proved an unqualified success. The fact that the vehicles are condemned to the high roads, or at least to comparatively smooth and level ground, constitutes a severe handicap. Again, when travelling at high speed, and this is essential when pursuing a fast aeroplane, the accurate laying of the weapon is extremely difficult, owing to the oscillation of the vehicle itself, especially if the road surface is in a bad condition. ”

“ What is new in Herwitz's research is the platform -- the UAV -- on which the digital cameras are mounted. The UAV promises several advantages over other platforms. It requires no on-board pilot and can fly at low altitudes targeting only the portion of the Earth's surface under study. ”

“ The UAV Coffee Project will test new practices in remote aerial imaging and analysis, wireless Ethernet ‘bridge’ communications technology and commercial capabilities of UAV technologies. Data from the cameras attached to the UAV will be continuously downloaded to computers that coffee growers can monitor and will indicate which parts of the plantation are ready for harvesting. ”

“ Another of the important military experiments has been the equipping of aeroplanes with wireless apparatus so that a wireless operator in the machine with the aviator could send and receive brief messages such as would describe the position and strength of an enemy in war time. Also many aviators have taken up with them photographers who have taken accurate photographs of both the still and motion variety of the country over which they were passing. Of course the armies of the world are building guns which will carry to a great altitude as a defence from aerial attack. ”

“ For the purposes of subsection (1) , the Director may, by notice published in the Gazette, prohibit a class or description of unmanned aircraft from being operated for a flight if the Director considers it necessary in the interests of aviation safety or public safety.
(3) The Director may, by notice published in the Gazette, vary, suspend or revoke a prohibition made under subsection (2) .
(4) Any notice published under subsection (2) or (3) is not subsidiary legislation. ”

“ If a flight of a small unmanned aircraft is partly within Hong Kong and partly outside Hong Kong, this Part applies to or in relation to the aircraft only in respect of the part of the flight that is within Hong Kong. ”

“ For unmanned scientific investigations with roving vehicles on the planets, or for more ambitious instrumented missions out of the plane of the elliptic, even the Saturn C 2 does not provide sufficient payload-carrying capability. Relation between Manned and Unmanned Space Exploration Certainly among the major reasons for attending the manned exploration of space are emotional compulsions and national aspirations. ”

“ Night flying for commercial purposes, though, might easily be developed into a comparatively safe means of aerial transportation. The machines, however, ought to be constructed like the Sopwith Camel, with a very fast climbing and a very low landing speed, in order to get clear of obstacles quickly and to come to a stop as soon as it reached the earth. ”

“ Disregarding all anti-aircraft measures, machines would sweep down and throw battalions into panic or upset the military traffic along a road, demoralising a battery or a transport254 train and causing as much damage through congestion of traffic as with their actual machine-gun fire. Aerial photography, too, became a fine art; the ordinary long focus cameras were used at the outset with automatic plate changers, but later on photographing aeroplanes had cameras of wide angle lens type built into the fuselage. ”

“ Fort he time being, however, it appears that space exploration must rely on unmanned vehicles. Therefore, a crash program aimed at placing a man into an orbit at the earliest possible time cannot be justified solely on scientific or technical grounds. Indeed, it may hinder the development of our scientific and technical program even the future manned space program by diverting manpower, vehicles and funds. The acquisition of new knowledge and the enrichment of human life through technological advances are solid, durable, and worthwhile goals of space activities. ”

“ The ERAST program is a joint NASA-industry initiative to develop and demonstrate aeronautical technologies that could lead to a family of remotely or autonomously operated UAVs to carry out long-duration Earth science and environmental missions at high altitudes. ”

“ After rebaselining the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) program last year, the Army issued the final request for proposal for the concept design phase on December 18, 2020. OMFV is an example of how our new acquisitions process enabled the Army to learn early and recover before programs become too big to fail. The Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) effort envisions an unmanned platform that provides decisive mobility, lethality, survivability, and increased situational awareness to formations. ”

“ As the systems become more complex this may make a decisive difference in what one dares to undertake at any given time. From a purely scientific point of view it should be noted that unmanned flights to a given objective can be undertaken much earlier. ”

“ This unlawful use of these giant aircraft does not detract from what they demonstrated could be done in the way of aerial navigation and transportation under the frightful opposition of war, and it is only an augury of what will be accomplished when the same vessels of the air will be put to carrying man up and down the aerial highways of the heavens, which know no barriers, obstructions, or hostile opposition. ”

“ Rocket propulsion, of course, is not a new thing; the basic idea is centuries old. As applied to aerial warfare it was employed on a crude basis even in World War I. The Italians made public an experimental flight of a propellerless jet-type plane several years ago. Long before that, automobiles were driven by rocket engines, and special rockets for making meteorological soundings in the substratosphere were in use.... ”

“ But with dual-engine machines it has been found that, when one motor has failed mechanically, or has been put out of action by shrapnel, the remaining unit has been sufficient—though the machine has flown naturally at a reduced rate—to enable the pilot to regain his own lines.
In peace flying, too, as well as in war, the multiple-engined aeroplane brings a new factor of safety. If one of his motors fails, and he is over country which offers no suitable landing-place, the pilot with a duplicate power-plant need not be concerned. ”

“ Its wings must therefore be arched to give it lifting power, but at the same time it becomes a much slower flying machine than its smaller sister.
Lifting power of a wing can of course be increased up to a certain point by increasing the wing area, so that a greater air pressure is created below. Beyond that certain point the machine would become unwieldy and would lose its balancing properties. Yet this idea has been put into practise in building the latest types of aerial dreadnaughts used for reconnaissance. ”

“ But, in applying such a propelling force to the air, most of the force is utilised in maintaining aerodynamic support—as a matter of fact, more force is needed to maintain this support than the muscle of man could possibly furnish to a lifting screw, and even if the helicopter were applied to a full-sized, engine-driven air vehicle, the rate of ascent would depend on the amount of surplus power that could be carried. ”

“ Regardless of whether the vehicle is an airplane or dirigible, it is highly unlikely that much previous experience will have been acquired with such systems in planetary missions. While the aerodynamic properties of fliers may match those of some Earth-based machines, control and propulsion requirements are likely to differ significantly. Control problems perhaps may be solved using a combination of smart sensors and an advanced machine intelligence capability, together with a satisfactory energy source such as a 10 kW nuclear-power generator to drive an efficient propeller. ”

“ Since they were artificial, they must be under intelligent control. Since they were intelligently controlled, they must be unmanned missiles or manned vehicles launched from an alien spaceship hovering hundreds of miles above the earth whose purpose might or might not be destructive, or they might be merely ranging devices sent as a warning to earthmen. ”

“ However, it can be asked whether the presence of a man adds to the variety or quality of the observations which can be made from unmanned vehicles, in short whether there is a scientific justification to include man in space vehicles. ”

“ Then, when motor-unicycles are presently propelled by force transmitted (in the same way as Marconi’s telegrams) from a fixed power-house, the difficulty of flight will be within sight of an easy solution. Any competent mechanician of the present day could design a flying-machine if the mere weight of the motive appliance could be overcome. When the motor is fixed on terra firma, and the vehicle only needs to carry [57] a device for utilising the ætheric waves which the source of power wirelessly transmits, flight will be at least as simple a matter as wireless telegraphy is to-day. ”

“ The helicopter is a machine which theorists of that school believe can fly straight up into the sky because its air screw propeller works on a vertical axis. This type of aircraft has never been successful, for the reason that the propeller does not lift. It simply pulls a stream-lined surface through the air. The lifting must be done by planes.
The ornithopter is another heavier-than-air craft which seeks to fly by flapping wings like a bird. The effort to build this type of machine is as old as human desire to imitate the fowls of the air and it has been as unsuccessful as the helicopter. ”

“ There is no gainsaying that stunt flying, or aerial acrobatics, was absolutely essential to the flying of scout and combat machines in the Great War, for in order to survive in the war in the air it was necessary for the pilot to be able to manœuvre and dodge about in the sky as easily as a fish in the water; otherwise, the flier would be shot down by a more agile machine or clever aviator. ”

“ To do so he must often perform startling aerial tricks, looping the loop to come up under the tail of the other machine, swooping down from above, or firing from behind while the tail of the enemy machine shields him as he gets in his fatal shot. The aviator learns to hide behind a cloud, to take advantage of blinding sunlight or any other natural condition in order to take the opposing airplane unawares.
It is for this reason that machines are needed which combine speed, exceptional climbing powers, and quick maneuvering ability. ”