Unmanned Systems Technology 010 | nuTonomy driverless taxi | Embedded computing | HFE International marine powertrain | Space vehicles | Performance monitoring | Commercial UAV Show Asia report

40 A s light relief from reading patent documents, I recommend pushing slivers of bamboo under your fingernails or sticking pins in your eyes. Written for obvious reasons in legalese, they are the most effective way of making exciting new ideas seem as boring as possible. The pain is worth it though, as they are a good way of gauging what some of the industry’s most creative minds are thinking. Lately much of that creativity has been focused on managing unmanned vehicles through cloud-based services, while Amazon for example is developing a delivery concept using an airship- based UAV system. HALE to help and hinder AeroVironment envisages using multiple High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UAVs for GPS augmentation, comms relay and interdiction of hostile observation and comms satellites in patent US9404750 B2, published in August this year, with Edward Oscar Rios as inventor. They would remain on station for long periods at between 65,000 and 100,000 ft. It is the satellite sensor interdiction application that is the most fascinating. For this role, the UAV would be equipped with a satellite tracker and a steerable emitter, such as a laser in a gimballed turret for example, to dazzle or damage electro-optical sensors on target satellites. If the target spacecraft is a comsat, the UAV would attack it with a radio frequency jammer. In some embodiments of the concept, a second HALE UAV could work with the first to provide effectiveness assessments. In a GPS augmentation mission, four or more HALE UAVs carrying GPS antennas, receivers and repeaters would be deployed into the stratosphere, each configured to remain on station for two 24-hour periods before landing for turnround. Their repeated and augmented GPS signals could be used to overcome interference from terrestrial transmitters and GPS jammers. In a similar manner they could also augment and relay friendly comms signals. Peter Donaldson reports on some recent and intriguing patents for various aspects of unmanned aerial systems Ideas that fly October/November 2016 | Unmanned Systems Technology The Global Observer is in the category of HALE UAV that could interdict hostile craft by jamming their sensors (Courtesy of AeroVironment)