By Tekendra Parmar Need to Know provides context and resources to help you get a better understanding of recent developments in the world of drones. This past July, the United States and Singapore conducted their annual joint maritime warfare exercises; the 21st annual ‘Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training’ exercise was …
Helen Greiner has done more to bring robots into the mainstream of both civilian and military life than perhaps any other entrepreneur. The decidedly energetic 47-year-old is the co-founder of iRobot, which created the PackBot and Talon bomb disposal robots that came to be used widely by U.S. armed forces …
By Arthur Holland Michel In January of this year, photos emerged that appeared to show a China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation CH-3 drone armed with two AR-1 anti-tank missiles lying upside down in a field in Nigeria’s Borno Province, where Nigerian forces have been battling Boko Haram. The crash …
By Arthur Holland Michel From May 4 to May 7, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) held its annual Unmanned Systems convention in Atlanta, Georgia. In any given year, Unmanned Systems is likely the largest gathering of drone technology in a single place by orders of magnitude. Hundreds …
By Roger Connor Retired in April 2015, the U.S. Navy’s two Northrop Grumman X-47B unmanned air vehicles – known by their call signs as Salty Dog 501 and Salty Dog 502 – represent the most significant progress in Unmanned Combat Aerial Systems (UCAS) to date. Among a number of achievements, …
By Kelley Sayler This post was published in conjunction with the Center for a New American Security, which has an ongoing project on Ethical Autonomy. CNAS’ statement to the CCW can be found here. For our backgrounder on the UN CCW meeting, click here. From April 13 to 17, the UN …
Anab Jain is the cofounder of Superflux Lab, a design practice based in Ahmedabad and London. Its projects examine the ways emerging technologies integrate with our environment and everyday life, exploring these implications in a multidisciplinary fashion. By combining art, research, and development, Jain is creating new ways by which …
By Jason Gregg Drones are becoming a common feature in war. Israeli air operations in Gaza and U.S. operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and, most recently, in Syria, suggest that the use of armed drones in combat will likely continue to expand. The proliferation of armed drones is also set to accelerate, particularly …
By Arthur Holland Michel On Thursday March 19, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, home to such iconic aircraft as the Enola Gay, the Spirit of St. Louis, the SR-71 Blackbird (which travelled from Los Angeles to its final home in D.C. in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 …
By Anna Hadfield “What I have to say is openly polemical,” writes Grégoire Chamayou in the introduction of A Theory of the Drone, translated from the French by Janet Lloyd, “for, over and above the possible analytical contributions this book may make, its objective is to provide discursive weapons for …
By Arthur Holland Michel On February 5, 2003, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations General Assembly in order to describe in detail the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein was supposedly developing in Iraq. This speech is now infamous, and the the inaccurate statements about …
By Arthur Holland Michel As the February 27 deadline for Congress to approve an appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security approaches, and the prospect of a last-minute deal becomes smaller, it is worth considering whether a DHS shutdown would affect the Customs and Border Protection drone program. The …
