Defense contractor Lockheed Martin recently announced plans to developed the SR72 – a hypersonic unmanned aircraft that would be the successor to the famous SR71 BlackBird long-range reconnaissance aircraft developed in the 1960’s. The new aircraft will be able to ...

Sand Flea (Credit: Boston Dynamics) Sand Flea with its piston (Credit: Boston Dynamics) U.S. Company Boston Dynamics recently demonstrated a new type of tiny robotic jumper capable of surpassing almost any type of obstacle by jumping as high as a ...

Aurora Flight Sciences of Manassas, Virginia is developing a new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed for long flights at high altitudes. The Orion HALL (High Altitude, Long Loiter) UAV will be capable of remaining in the air for over 100 ...

AirRobot, a Germany-based company, has recently developed a small robotic unmanned aerial vehicle, which it says can help save lives in emergency situations and prevent terrorist attacks in urban areas. The common use for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in civil ...

Lockheed Martin and Kaman Aerospace demonstrated the feasibility of using their K-Max unmanned helicopter as a supply transport for the United States Army and Marine Corps. The helicopters have not yet been deployed in military situations, but have been successful ...

The United States Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are developing a new surveillance blimp designed to fly higher and longer than any existing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft. Designed to hover at 65,000 feet ...

NASA and the Northrop Grumman Corporation have recently unveiled a new unmanned aircraft system named Global Hawk. It is the world’s first fully autonomous high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft designed for environmental science research and features unprecedented flight time and altitude capabilities. ...

The Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) of the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech have developed a trio of pole-climbing serpentine robots, the HyDRAS-Ascent, HyDRAS-Arm, and the CIRCA. The robots are designed to climb scaffolding and buildings by wrapping around ...

Engineers at Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, are applying electro-optic technology to locate tunnels used by terrorists to smuggle weaponry. The research, led by Dr. Assaf Klar and Dr. Raphael Linker of the faculty of civil and environmental engineering, ...

2008 was a year packed with new technologies, innovations and discoveries – from a new billion-color display to advanced electric cars making their first appearance on the market. In this summary, we have gathered some of the most unique stories ...