The Robotic Pilot Unmanned Conversion Program (ROBOpilot) converts a general aviation aircraft into an unmanned vehicle and then returns it back to its original configuration – all without making permanent modifications to the aircraft.

Researchers are testing methods of making helicopters fly faster and more efficiently by controlling the flow and separation of air over the blades including a blade shaped in such a way that it mitigates reverse flow.

The Air Force Research Laboratory has investigated the effects of space weather damage to polyimides – materials used extensively in spacecraft construction due to their high heat resistance. The researchers determined the previously unknown chemical and physical effects of electron bombardment in Earth's magnetosphere on these polymers.

Be grateful you’re not on a dragonfly’s diet. You might be a fruit fly or maybe a mosquito, but it really wouldn’t matter the moment you look back and see four powerful wings pounding through the air after you. You fly for your life, weaving evasively, but the dragonfly somehow tracks you with seemingly instant reflexes. For a moment, you think you’ve gotten away, just as it closes in swiftly from below for the kill. Then, as the dinosaur-era predator claws into you with its spiny legs and drags you into its jaws midair, you might wonder to yourself, “How did it catch me with such a tiny brain and no depth perception?”

The U.S. Army issued a contract award to accelerate the rapid prototyping and fielding of its first combat-capable laser weapon system. This prototype will deliver 50 kilowatt-class lasers on a platoon of four Stryker vehicles in Fiscal Year 2022, supporting the Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD) mission. The directed energy M-SHORAD capability is intended to protect maneuvering Brigade Combat Teams from unmanned aerial systems (UAS), rotary-wing aircraft, and rockets, artillery and mortar (RAM).

Who doesn’t like to feel warm in the winter and cool in the summer?

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has adopted NASA’s Search and Rescue (SAR) office’s recommendations regarding the installation and maintenance of Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs), the NASA-designed, satellite-aided search and rescue beacons installed in planes.

In January 2016, researchers from AFRL started focusing on the ability to 3D-print parts for the Air Force – specifically, polymer architectures that can replace heavier and complex metal parts currently used in low-cost aircraft or on jet engines.

Many medical devices — from robotic surgery to autonomous delivery robots in hospitals, to dialysis equipment — use motion control products to operate. Allied Motion’s long and successful experience as a supplier to medical equipment manufacturers rests on our ability to offer the expertise, technologies, advanced products, and the global presence necessary to deliver high-quality motion solutions to our customers.

Automatic landings have long been standard procedure for commercial aircraft at major airports; this is usually not the case at smaller airports. Researchers have developed a completely automatic landing with vision-assisted navigation that functions properly without the need for ground-based systems.