UAV

AeroVironment has just revealed its latest heavy-duty medium uncrewed aircraft system known as the Jump 20-X. With an impressive range of capabilities, the drone could easily become a cornerstone of sea-based combat and surveillance.

One of the rotary engine's biggest champions, AIE has been advancing rotary design since 2012. Its latest release shows that Wankel engines can be a perfect fit for compact, power-demanding applications in robotics and aerospace.

Taking cues from geckos, EPFL researchers have developed an unmanned aerial vehicle with an upturned nose that crashes into vertical poles, and then wraps its wings around to perch. The PercHug could find use in inspection and surveillance tasks.

The Mk-II Aurora suborbital spaceplane took to the skies last year for its maiden flight with a rocket engine. Now Dawn Aerospace has been give the official nod from New Zealand's Civil Aviation Authority to undertake test flights at unlimited speeds.

After launching a modern pulsejet engine for UAVs back in March, Wave Engine Corporation announced this week that it's delivered the first units. The loud, pulse-combustion fire-breather is officially finding its way to air-bound vehicles.

DARPA has committed further funding for far-field wireless power transfer – or power-beaming – to wirelessly charge drones in flight without them ever having to abandon mission to recharge or swap out dead batteries, potentially saving critical missions.

The Scottish company behind a novel heavy-lift utility UAV that uses an internal combustion engine and hydraulic motors has now frozen design plans and is preparing for production following successful flight tests in Denmark.

Sikorsky has advanced to the next phase of a DARPA project to develop an unmanned VTOL aircraft capable of flying all-weather missions from ships or land. The rotor blown wing VTOL tail-sitter is currently undergoing flight testing.

Wave Engine Corp has aced a demonstration flight of a simple jet engine with no moving parts. A modern version of a pulsejet, the J-1 engine powered a UAV through take-off and several mid-air stop/starts before the aircraft nailed the landing.

Mesmerizing video shows Teledyne FLIR's new autonomous drone-catching cradle matching the movements of a model helicopter and grabbing it the instant it's within reach. It'll allow soldiers to launch and recover drones from inside their vehicles.

Armed with a 300-horsepower, supercharged engine from Kawasaki's fearsome H2R hyperbike, the K-Racer X1 unmanned helicopter is an absolute beast of a cargo drone, the size of a small car. Watch it lifting a national-record weight in this new video.

Airbus innovation division UpNext is testing its next-gen autonomous systems for air-to-air in-flight refueling, which could be a revolutionary leap forward for a variety of military and civil aircraft, safely extending range and endurance.