News Report: New Generation of Chinese Drones Equipped With Anti-Tank Missiles Unveiled

Chinese drone-maker Tengoen unveiled a new series of armed reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) at the 14th China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning, Guangxi Province, China.

The UAVs include two fixed-wing models and two vertical take-off and landing models (VTOLs). One platform that was demonstrated is the TB001 "Twin-Tailed Scorpion," which Tengoen claims is the first and only Chinese-made twin-engine, twin-boom unmanned aerial system (UAS) ever.

The TB001 is 33 feet long and has a wingspan of twice that. It can fly for 35 hours and travel over 3,700 miles in that time. It is optimized for satellite control as well as an electro-optical targeting sensor. It can also be equipped with armaments, such as small missile launchers, for a total of 220 pounds of ordnance. A mock-up at the UAV show depicted the TB001 equipped with eight anti-tank Norinco Blue Arrow missiles, each weighing 100 pounds.

Also showcased was the TA001, a single pusher-engine UAV meant to carry lighter ordnance. It was about half the size of the TB001.

News Story: Pentagon successfully tests micro-drone swarm

Perdix Swarming Micro-Drones

The Pentagon may soon be unleashing a 21st-century version of locusts on its adversaries after officials on Monday said it had successfully tested a swarm of 103 micro-drones.

The important step in the development of new autonomous weapon systems was made possible by improvements in artificial intelligence, holding open the possibility that groups of small robots could act together under human direction.

Military strategists have high hopes for such drone swarms that would be cheap to produce and able to overwhelm opponents' defenses with their great numbers.

The test of the world's largest micro-drone swarm in California in October included 103 Perdix micro-drones measuring around six inches (16 centimeters) launched from three F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Read the full story at SpaceDaily

News Story: No plans for killer US military robots... yet

ACTUV: The USA's future Anti-Submarine Drone Ship

By Thomas WATKINS

Robotic systems and unmanned vehicles are playing an ever-growing role in the US military -- but don't expect to see Terminator-style droids striding across the battlefield just yet.

A top Pentagon official on Wednesday gave a tantalizing peek into several projects that not long ago were the stuff of science fiction, including missile-dodging satellites, self-flying F-16 fighters and robot naval fleets.

Though the Pentagon is not planning to build devices that can kill without human input, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work hinted that could change if enemies with fewer qualms create such machines.

"We might be going up against a competitor that is more willing to delegate authority to machines than we are, and as that competition unfolds we will have to make decisions on how we best can compete," he said.

Work, who helps lead Pentagon efforts to ensure the US military keeps its technological edge, described several initiatives, including one dubbed "Loyal Wingman" that would see the Air Force convert an F-16 warplane into a semi-autonomous and unmanned fighter that flies alongside a manned F-35 jet.

"It is going to happen," Work said of this and other unmanned systems.

"I would expect to see unmanned wingmen in the air first, I would expect to see unmanned systems undersea all over the place, I would expect to see unmanned systems on the surface of the sea," Work told an audience at a discussion in the capital hosted by The Washington Post.

The US military has over the past 15 years invested heavily in unmanned drone technology, used to surveil vast parts of the Middle East and Africa and sometimes conduct deadly strikes -- though remote human operators decide when to fire.

Read the full story at SpaceDaily