Lifeboat Foundation

High-tech warfare at knife-fight ranges: that’s the ugly future of urban combat. If you thought Baghdad was bad, with its roughly six million people, imagine a “megacity” of 10 or 20 million, where the slums have more inhabitants than some countries. Imagine a city of the very near future where suspicious locals post every US military movement on Twitter with digital photos and GPS-precise coordinates. Imagine roadside bombs that fly because the bad guys downloaded blueprints for a kamikaze mini-drone and built it with their 3D printer.

As the US pulls out of the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan, the Navy and Air Force may be looking to the wide-open Pacific, but the Army is increasingly concerned about the cramped alleyways of Third World cities. (The Marines, as usual, have a foot in both worlds). Chief of Staff Ray Odierno’s personal Strategic Studies Group — now led by hybrid warfare expert David Johnson — is working on the subject, as is the Army’s think tank and teaching institution, Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). This August, after months of seminars, simulations, and study, the Army War College will host a “deep future wargame” set in a megacity, probably a coastal one, circa 2035.

Continue reading “Army Grapples With Cyber Age Battles In Megacities” »

One day, they may yet turn against us, but for now, they’re still our allies: A drone rescued two teenage swimmers in distress off the coast of New South Wales in Australia, according to a new report. The drone spotted two teenagers in trouble around a half-a-mile out from shore, and then dropped a flotation device it carries for the purpose to give them something to hang on to (via Verge).

This drone was actually not supposed to be saving anyone just yet – it was engaged in a pilot project to test its viability. But the Sydney Morning Herald reports that when a call came through about the swimmers in trouble, the drone happened to be in the Ari and nearby, positioned well to respond.

The drone’s pilot, a decorated veteran lifeguard for New South Wales, was able to Gert out to the swimmers’ position, and drop the pod in a minute or two, which is at least a few minutes less than it would’ve taken to respond directly with actual flesh and blood lifeguards.

Continue reading “Drone comes to the rescue of two swimmers in Australia” »

Lifeguards in Australia interrupt a drone training session to save two stricken boys.

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It may take a drone to hunt a drone in the system that DARPA could begin testing later this year.

This is an indestructible drone.

In the future, autonomy won’t just mean you can relax in the passenger seat on your drive home from work. Driverless vehicles of all kinds are set to revolutionize the cargo industry, too, from delivering a pizza or dropping off an Amazon package, to hauling much larger shipments across continents and the high seas. Naturally, Boeing is one of many companies investing in cargo planes of tomorrow, and is keen to show off some of its early work in the form of a huge octocopter capable of carrying loads of up to 500 pounds (over 250kg). In less than three months, engineers at Boeing built and carried out successful test flights of the all-electric prototype, possibly (but unofficially) breaking a Guinness world record in the process.

The rough-and-ready concoction of metal and batteries measures 15 feet long, 18 feet wide and 4 feet tall, weighing in at 747 pounds (nearly 339kg). In other words, it dwarfs the consumer DJI drone you got for Christmas. Obviously Boeing’s prototype is far from a commercial product, but the firm says it’ll be used “as a flying test bed to mature the building blocks of autonomous technology for future applications.”

Continue reading “Boeing’s prototype cargo drone can haul 500-pound loads” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xqwS7CcjA28

Boeing unveils a squarish, skeletal quadcopter to try out new unmanned-delivery concepts.

Boeing’s newest prototype drone is a skeletal, squarish quadrotor built as a “flying test bed to mature the building blocks of autonomous technology for future applications,” the aircraft maker said in a statement.

Continue reading “Tomorrow’s Cargo Drones Won’t Look Much Like Today’s Helicopters” »

Imagine you and a group of friends are at the peak of a mountain after a long hike. It’s sunset and the sky is alight; you want to take a photo. You pull out your smartphone, but instead of flipping it around to take a long-armed selfie, you unclip a tiny drone from the back of your phone, make it hover at the perfect height and snap a series of photos, no extendo-arms required.