The U.S. Marine Corps wants to equip its infantry units with a man-portable, swarming loitering munition to help counter China’s growing military with a light and deadly seaborne infantry force. The “Organic Precision Fires - Infantry Light” program is pursuing ground-launched drones that have a range of up to 20 kilometers, can loiter for 90 minutes, swarm, be jam resistant and able to take out both enemy troops and equipment.

TEL AVIV (JNS) “A recently launched artificial intelligence (AI)-driven operating system company allows companies to receive an unprecedented level of operational efficiency and data-driven decision-making, according to Michael Ouliel, founder and CEO of BlackSwan Technologies. Its signature Platform, ELEMENT, combines multiple AI technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, deep learning, neural-network and data-operation facilities into a single platform. …ELEMENT is described by BlackSwan Technologies as a cognitive operating system that enables the rapid development of enterprise applications in any number of areas critical to companies—from product design, finance, marketing, supply chain and human resources.” BlackSwan Technologies launched officially in October and has generated tens of millions of dollars’ worth of contracts with leading businesses.

Bloomberg.com/news reported that Hyundai Motor Group, along with some associated companies and Chairman Euisun Chung, will acquire an 80% interest in Boston Dynamics from SoftBank Group Corp, leaving the Japanese firm with a 20% share, the companies said in a Friday statement. The Bloomberg reports noted that South Korean conglomerate Hyundai Motor Group has been beefing up its research in robotics as it expands further into electric and autonomous vehicles.

A revolution in orchestrated drone warfare has riveted the attention of world powers. The decisive military defeat inflicted on Armenia by Turkey’s ally, Azerbaijan, has brought this development to the fore. It has been likened to the arrival of tanks on the battlefield that obsoleted horse-mounted cavalry. This new form of warfare integrates intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance (IRS) with electronic warfare and pinpoint real-time targeting of weapons. It was reported by Scott ritter at Lewrockwell.com that "For every $1 in losses suffered by Turkey, Syria lost approximately $5". 2,425 Armenian soldiers were reportedly lost in the fighting, as well as 185 T-72 tanks, 182 artillery pieces, 73 multiple rocket launchers, 90 armored fighting vehicles and 26 surface-to-air missile systems. What was behind this?

Parallax, founded by Ken Gracey, is one of the venerable, pioneering robotics education companies that have created an industry supporting educators, students and hobbyists in recent decades. Parallax is the creator of the multicore Propeller and the original BASIC Stamp microcontrollers. Parallax’s Boe-Bot is widely used in education and by hobbyists, as are many other robots and robotics products originated by Ken and his engineering team at Parallax. Parallax has recently updated its website, and you probably want to take a look! It represents a lot of work and is a lot of fun to explore!

DefenseNews.com announced that Turkey is launching its first Combat Unmanned Surface Vessel (CUSV). A partnership between two leading Turkish defense companies has launched the country’s first armed unmanned surface vessel, the ULAQ. The new CUSV is “equipped with day and night vision capabilities as well as encrypted communication infrastructure, which can be operated from mobile vehicles and headquarters or from sea platforms such as aircraft carriers or frigates. That infrastructure can be used for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, surface warfare, asymmetric warfare, escort and strategic infrastructure protection missions.” The first vessel will enter Mediterranean waters in December.

QinetiQ formally delivered the first of four experimental “light” Robot Combat Vehicles (RCV-Ls) to the Army on 5 November. They will be used with 4 Textron RCV-Mediums in 2022 field tests. The Army plans to buy 16 more of each as it scales up to determine the feasibility of using a forward line of robots that precede human troops on the battlefield. Building on years of R&D by the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, the ongoing collaborative effort brings together technologies from QinetiQ, Pratt Miller and the Army’s Ground Vehicle Systems Center.

Stealth Technologies will collaborate with autonomous drone technology company, Planck AeroSystems in the development of systems for launching off of and landing onto moving unmanned ground vehicles and surface vessels. Planck’s core enabling technology is vision-based precision landing on moving platforms without GPS.

The UAS Summit & Expo started as a small gathering of regional stakeholders. Now, 14 years later, the event in the Northern Plains of North Dakota has become a major yearly event for UAS experts from around the world. It’s the original epicenter of drone research, earned its place as the Silicon Valley of Drones and as you’ll see from the commercial, government and military flight activity filling the sky of the Northern Plains and beyond every day, it has truly become America’s UAS proving grounds. The UAS Summit will provide attendees with a comprehensive overview of the current state of the unmanned aircraft systems industry.

In a world’s first demonstration, the Skeldar V-150 was autonomously flown across continents while under the observation and control of a team based in Switzerland. UMS SKELDAR will now be able to provide remote product demonstrations to prospective customers on a global basis.

The new WAVE camera from FreeFly is now available to well-heeled roboticists, researchers and institutions. It offers continuous 2K and 4K high-speed streaming image capture, with packages from $9,995.00.

It was reported in the # 20 - 20 - 3 OCTOBER 2020 issue of the Unmanned Systems News (USN) that AeroVironment has unveiled its Switchblade 600, a loitering munition with a larger, anti-armor warhead than earlier versions. Switchblade 600 is the first in a series of new loitering munitions AeroVironment plans to offer, the company said on 30 September. The new loitering munition weighs 22.7kg (50lb), is man-portable and can be set up for deployment from a launch tube in less than 10min. It also can be configured for launch from a vehicle or slow-moving aircraft. The UAV is powered by an electric battery and propeller. It has endurance to fly 43nm (80km) and make multiple orbits above a target before striking. That equates to about 40min of flight endurance, says AeroVironment. It has a dash speed of 100kt (169km/h).