mabieMore nano stuff…
Tomorrow’s Spy Plane
A Nano Air Vehicle based on a maple seed.
By Tony Reichhardt
In the interest of planting more trees, Nature designed maple seeds to twirl like one-bladed helicopters as far as the wind could carry them, without much thought to where they land.
Steve Jameson thinks he can fix that.
At Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Laboratories (ATL) in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Jameson and his colleagues are working on a Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) modeled after the humble maple seed, which soldiers could some day carry in their pockets and send out on reconnaissance missions to photograph inside a cave or down a blind alley. First, though, Jameson and crew have to solve a host of tricky technical problems, including how to control the direction of flight. Nobody’s ever built a controllable mono-copter before.
In July the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency gave Lockheed $1.7 million and 10 months to do preliminary design work on the company’s NAV, which beat out other competitors for the contract partly because of its simplicity. Unlike miniature conventional helicopters or robots modeled on flying insects, the NAV has very few moving parts, so there’s less to break down. Basically, it’s a single blade two inches long, with a tiny rocket thruster at its tip, which sets the blade spinning like a pinwheel at 15,000 rpm to produce lift. Also onboard (probably at the fat “seed” end, although the location is still undecided) will be a package including a battery, sensors, and navigation and communication equipment, all suitably teensy. Fully loaded, the NAV weighs about a third of an ounce.
If that sounds like a technical challenge…well, yeah. And some parts of the job will be more challenging than others. One of the first tasks, says Jameson, is to come up with new computer models for this largely unexplored regime of flight. The design and fabrication of the blade-tip rocket thruster are perhaps the biggest technical stretches, he thinks. Jameson won’t say what rocket fuels are under consideration (the project is particularly sensitive to foreign export controls), but the thruster will need to be 100 times smaller than anything built to date. Jameson says the ATK Corporation—who’s partnering on the ATL-led project with Lockheed’s famed “Skunk Works,” Sandia National Laboratories, AeroCraft, and the University of Pennsylvania—hopes to be testing a prototype thruster by April.
As if miniaturization weren’t enough of a problem, the engineers have to consider the effects of spinning at 15,000 rpm. Tanks will have to deal with instability caused by the rocket fuel sloshing. Guidance and navigation systems and cameras will have to account for the rotation, precisely timing their signals so as to “see” in a straight line.
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As for steering, the engineers are looking for a way to adapt traditional helicopter control techniques to their unique design. DARPA’s vision—what the agency hopes to be flight testing within a few years if the research on subsystems goes smoothly—is a NAV that can fly two-thirds of a mile steered by a handheld unit. Top speed would be about 33 feet per second, and the mono-copter would be able to hover in place for at least a minute. It could then release a payload and return to the operator.
Some of those requirements may ultimately prove too ambitious, but so far Jameson says he’s “fairly happy with how things are coming together.” At this early stage, his main worry is making sure the vehicle doesn’t creep up in size and weight. “We’re working hard to keep it from looking more like [Harry Potter’s] Golden Snitch than a maple seed,” he jokes.
mabieThe F-15 and F-16 were the exception rather than the rule. Most military aircraft only have one engine option.
You’re right.. I think I read somewhere that the potential was for something like 6000 engines to be built over the operational life of the F-35 including spares..that’s a big $$$ number, enough for 2 suppliers.
mabiemaybe they want to test it against the LO planes in inventory how effective their IR suppression tech works?
mabie2018 bomber prototype?
mabieI guess it really is too early to compare the two, we simply don’t have the info to do so. I just think that it would be unwise to go with a single engine supplier.. competition is essential otherwise companies become fat and complacent and lose their edge.
mabieAre there any issues re possible battle damage caused to a nuclear-powered destroyer/cruiser-sized warship? Wouldn’t the greater danger of radioactive materials spreading be far more likely on smaller ships? At least on a carrier the reactors would have more protection against damage and submarines wouyld probably be underwater (and sink) in case of catastrophic damage.
mabieI wouldn’t mind swapping a few F-35s for more Raptors.
mabieIf reports are accurate, the Python 5 has already been certified on the F-16.. it shot down a Hizbollah UAV a couple of months ago.. my guess is the USAF wants to get to evaluate the weapon to better know how to beat it
mabieI think being an enemy pilot flying in an area where raptors may be lurking will feel like a swimmer with a bleeding wound in shark-infested waters.. the stress level would be terrific
mabieAnother interesting radar development.. wil require a ton of CPU power though.. maybe install the 3rd CIP on the raptor?
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Sunday, August 13, 2006
Stealth Radar signals resembles random noise
Here’s an interesting tidbit regarding a new stealthy radar technology. It seems to take the general concept of the F-22 Raptor’s AN/APG-77 radar and build on it. The “77” is considered stealthy because it generates seemingly random RF and that is not easily detected by the enemy’s SIGINT assets.
This new concept is however a bit different and I must say, sounds intrguing…
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State University engineers have invented a radar system that is virtually undetectable, because its signal resembles random noise.
The radar could have applications in law enforcement, the military, and disaster rescue.
Eric K. Walton, senior research scientist in Ohio State’s ElectroScience Laboratory, said that with further development the technology could even be used for medical imaging.
He explained why using random noise makes the radar system invisible.
“Almost all radio receivers in the world are designed to eliminate random noise, so that they can clearly receive the signal they’re looking for,” Walton said. “Radio receivers could search for this radar signal and they wouldn’t find it. It also won’t interfere with TV, radio, or other communication signals.”
The radar scatters a very low-intensity signal across a wide range of frequencies, so a TV or radio tuned to any one frequency would interpret the radar signal as a very weak form of static.
“It doesn’t interfere because it has a bandwidth that is thousands of times broader than the signals it might otherwise interfere with,” Walton said. Like traditional radar, the “noise” radar detects objects by bouncing a radio signal off them and detecting the rebound. The hardware isn’t expensive, either; altogether, the components cost less than $100.
The difference is that the noise radar generates a signal that resembles random noise, and a computer calculates very small differences in the return signal. The calculations happen billions of times every second, and the pattern of the signal changes constantly. A receiver couldn’t detect the signal unless it knew exactly what random pattern to look for.
The radar can be tuned to penetrate solid walls — just like the waves that transmit radio and TV signals — so the military could spot enemy soldiers inside a building without the radar signal being detected, Walton said. Traffic police could measure vehicle speed without setting off drivers’ radar detectors. Autonomous vehicles could tell whether a bush conceals a more dangerous obstacle, like a tree stump or a gulley.
The radar is inherently able to distinguish between many types of targets because of its ultra-wide-band characteristics. “Unfortunately, there are thousands of everyday objects that look like humans on radar — even chairs and filing cabinets,” he said. So the shape of a radar image alone can’t be used to identify a human. “What tends to give a human away is that he moves. He breathes, his heart beats, his body makes unintended motions.”
These tiny motions could be used to locate disaster survivors who were pinned under rubble. Other radar systems can’t do that, because they are too far-sighted — they can’t see people who are buried only a few yards away. Walton said that the noise radar is inherently able to see objects that are nearby.
“It can see things that are only a couple of inches away with as much clarity as it can see things on the surface of Mars,” he added.
That means that with further development, the radar might image tumors, blood clots, and foreign objects in the body. It could even measure bone density. As with all forms of medical imaging, studies would first have to determine the radar’s effect on the body.
The university is expected to license the patented radar system…
mabieWhat really is the likelihood of the YF-23 being resurrected in any shape or form? Not very likely IMO. It may have had some slight advantages over the YF-22 but the reverse was also true. Logic dictates it would take a lot, lot more money to build anything based on the YF-23 rather than the F-22 w/c is actually in production. The YF-23 is destined to be one of those planes that will only fly again in our imaginations.
mabieIf they were able to cut 3000lbs from the JSF then 5000lbs from a commercial jetliner should pose no problem.
mabieWhat I particularly like about the “skins” approach is that you would be able to provide 360-degree radar coverage extending possibly several hundred kilometers for unbeatable situational awareness, all in a fighter-sized platform.. in LPI mode,it would also be stealthier as well. Additionally, with the demonstrated ability of AESA to support very high data bandwidths, it would redefine network-centric warfare.
mabieFrom Guam to Taiwan Strait is about 3000 km. Combat radius for F-22 is about half of that. Even with refueling, flying at lower speed, and happy pills, that would be very difficult.
Now Bombers would be another story. B-52 didn’t do those JDAM excercise for nothing, and USAF still has stealthy B-2 as the ace in the hole.
yes, bombers are fine for that distance.. but will air superiority have to be achieved by USN and ROC air Force w/o any contribution from the USAF, specially F-22s? It may not be so easy to achieve, or at least it will be a lot costlier than what the US has come to expect in its wars.
mabieWhy not spend a few bucks more and fill the bombs with explosives? It would have made a much more impressive demo.
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