L3Harris has completed a fully autonomous launch and recovery of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) from an underway submarine, referred to as Torpedo Tube Launch and Recovery (TTL&R). The launch used Iver4 AUV technology from L3Harris.
The L3Harris team worked closely with the U.S. Navy to demonstrate AUV launch and recovery through a test program aboard submarines and Navy support vessels.
The recovery of AUVs into an underway submarine allows the host platform to remain covert while the AUV performs surveys and missions in areas inaccessible to the host platform. The AUVs return with data that can be used for tactical and navigational planning — delivering manned and unmanned teaming to a fleet.
According to L3Harris, the company welcomes the continued opportunity to support the Navy in the development of manned and unmanned operational concepts. This capability will increase operational effectiveness and allow SSN-class submarines to serve as an AUV mothership.
Four T300’s from ComNav Technology have been used as active control GNSS points on the top of Sweden’s tallest building, Karlatornet, during its construction to deliver 3D coordinates to total stations and one was used as a base station. The building is set to be complete this month.
The T300 is a receiver with radio frequency, a baseband chip built in, and a unique quantum-real-time kinematic (RTK) algorithm. It supports full constellation systems including BDS-2, BDS-3, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS and NavIC.
The receiver is designed for demanding surveying tasks, features tilt compensation, 4G/Wi-Fi connection, 8-GB internal memory and an easy survey workflow with Android-based Survey Master Software. It is designed to make collecting accurate data easy and fast, whether done by a beginner or experienced professional surveyor, the company said.
Venice arose after the fall of the Roman Empire. The city holds 450 palaces, more than 400 bridges and is home to the notable St. Mark’s Basilica. It is also known for its many canals, which are full of gondolas the way the streets of other cities are full of taxis or rickshaws. (Image: Freeartist/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images)
It is hard to believe that Italy’s “floating city” could be underwater soon.
The average rate of relative sea-level rise is 2.5 mm/year, per the European Geosciences Union’s journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences. This photo of Venice from the European Space Agency (ESA) was taken in 2008 by Ikonos-2, a commercial satellite (Image: ESA)
Predictions for the future of the city vary, but most scientists agree that the sea level is rising due to climate change. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, an interdisciplinary journal of the European Geosciences Union, published a report in 2021 suggesting the average sea level could be between 17 cm and 120 cm higher in Venice by 2100.
Venice was built in the middle of a shallow lagoon in the Adriatic Sea. Therefore, it has always been at risk of flooding or “acqua alta,” meaning high water. There is evidence of severe flooding dating back to around the 8th century.
The Venetian lagoon is more than 500 km2 in total, but has an average depth of only 1 m, according to Royal Museums-Greenwich. High tides and severe storms have a devastating impact on the wetland environment on which Venice is built.
Compared to the image of Venice in 2008, this U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) satellite image of Venice from May 2023 shows the rise in sea level within the past 15 years. (Image: USGS)
In November 2019, Venice experienced the second-worst flooding event in almost 100 years. The tide reached 187 cm (6.1 ft) above sea level, covering 80% of the city in water, reported the BBC.
City records show there have been 324 intense high-water events since 1872 and more than half of those have been in the past 30 years. Among the many and vast consequences of human-caused climate change may be the end of one of the world’s most beautiful cities.
1Spatial — a global provider of geospatial software and solutions for improved data governance — has launched the 1Capture, a customizable mobile application for data capture.
1Capture is a mobile GIS editing application that is multi-use and configurable. It provides accurate and reliable GIS data collection and editing in the field for a multitude of asset, job, and survey types.
Customizable rules and actions work to improve data quality at the point of capture. This ensures good quality data is captured at source, minimizing re-surveys. The built-in rules engine automatically validates and corrects the GIS and non-GIS data collected, whether working online or offline.
1Capture connects with a variety of GIS environments including Esri ArcGIS and open-source technologies such as PostGIS and Geoserver.
Off the coast of Long Island, New York, UAVs are sweeping the ocean patrolling for any danger that may lurk below the water. This follows a recent increase in shark encounters for beachgoers, reported USA Today.
According to George Gorman, the state’s park director in Long Island, there have been five shark bites reported this year as shark season is just beginning.
On July 6, the sighting of a 10-foot shark prompted officials to keep people out of the water at Robert Moses State Park. This is the same Long Island beach that delayed its opening on July 4, after a UAV spotted a school of 50 sand sharks off the coast.
Even if the injuries have not been serious, Gorman and others are concerned by the spike in shark sightings and encounters.
The UAVs conduct three sweeps a day on popular Long Island beaches — once before opening, sometime midday, and a final round before the end of the day.
Cary Epstein, a lifeguard supervisor who pilots UAVs at Jones Beach, explained how UAVs provide additional viewpoints to lifeguards on the beach.
“When you’re up in an elevated lifeguard station or a lifeguard stand, you can see up and you can see out, but you can’t see straight down,” Epstein said. “When we do have sharks that are eating on these fish, it’s very, very clear to us. You could see it, no questions asked.”
Additional state funding has been provided for more advanced UAVs to spot sharks.
New York Governor, Kathy Hochul, recently announced a new program that will provide $1 million toward purchasing 60 new shark-monitoring UAVs. The new devices will build on the enhanced shark safety measures at Long Island state park beaches — including more trained staff, new jet skis, and more buffer zones between swimming areas and fishing areas.
More than 350 UAVs were lost during a practice light display show in Melbourne, Australia, on July 14, ahead of a scheduled performance for the opening of the women’s World Cup.
The UAVs appeared to stop mid-show and plummet into the Yarra River. Divers have since fished out hundreds of the UAVs.
According to the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, the likely cause of the mass-crash was caused by interference with GPS signals. This incident shows that having multiple and robust navigation sources is important for safe UAV operation.
Turf Tank — inventor of an autonomous, GPS-guided line marking robot, built and designed specifically for painting athletic fields — has released the Turf Tank Two.
This robot features dual motor drives for enhanced torque and optimized wheels for traction. On its own and controlled through a tablet, the Turf Tank Two can paint a regulation 11 versus 11 soccer field in less than 24 minutes, a baseball or softball field in less than 11 minutes, a lacrosse field in less than 26 minutes, and a full 100-yard football field in less than 3.5 hours. It can also paint logos and numbers.
The Turf Tank Two is 43 in x 33 in x 22.5 in. It weighs 123 lbs, without paint or the battery installed, and it can hold 5.5 gallons of paint.
Enhanced features of the Turf Tank Two also include a revamped sprayer module and advanced control features — including a redesigned front panel that has convenient pause/resume options with LED indicators displaying the robot’s status and a start/stop sprayer button. An LED indicator also comes on the battery.
Turf Tank Two is both eco- and environmentally friendly, the company says. Its batteries are rechargeable and because of the robot’s precision and accuracy, it uses significantly less paint and eliminates the overspray that is common with either painting by hand or using many of the older paint machines and sprayers in the market.
Guided by GPS, the Turf Tank Two uses a base station to ensure its accuracy. The base station becomes a fixed point from which the robot knows to paint the same exact field every time it is dispatched. The base station communicates with satellites to ensure the accuracy of the field dimensions.
Once the user installs a particular field layout, it becomes a simple drag and drop process through the tablet. From there, it’s as simple as setting one to four points on each field to give the robot a starting point, and then the robot will paint that field autonomously.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released an implementation plan outlining the steps it and others will need to take to enable advanced air mobility (AAM) operations safely. The plan, called Innovate28, includes various components and a timeline for their implementation to hopefully be completed by 2028.
This plan serves as a foundation for making entry into service routine and predictable by maximizing the use of existing procedures and infrastructure. It addresses how the agency and partners will certify aircraft and pilots, manage airspace access, ensure pilot training, develop infrastructure, maintain security and engage communities.
The plan also includes a planning guide that can be applied to any site, laying out key integration objectives and sequences.
Among the entities that play a role in this plan include: the FAA; the advanced air mobility industry; labor partners, NASA; United States Department of Homeland Security; United States Department of Energy; power industry; and state, local and tribal communities.
Pilots will be able to fly the new advanced mobility aircraft to and from multiple locations at the sites, using predetermined flight schedules with pilots aboard.
Advanced air mobility aircraft likely will operate up to 4,000 feet altitude in urban and metropolitan areas, using existing or modified low altitude visual flight rules (VFR) routes where possible within controlled Class B and C airspace around major airports.
Infrastructure
Operators, manufacturers, state and local governments, and other stakeholders will be responsible for planning, developing and enabling heliport/vertiport infrastructure.
Advanced air mobility will initially operate at existing heliports, commercial service airports and general aviation airports. Modifications may be necessary to install charging stations, parking zones and taxiing space.
Power Grid
The electrical power grid may require upgrades to serve advanced air mobility operations.
The FAA has an interagency agreement with the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab to determine how aircraft electrification affects a vertiport, heliport or airport’s electrical grid.
Security
The Department of Homeland Security will determine what type of security is necessary.
The Transportation Security Administration and FAA are evaluating the need for expanded cybersecurity requirements due to the use of advanced technology and operational protocols.
Environment
The FAA will consider the environmental impacts of advanced air mobility operations, including factors such as noise, air quality, visual disturbances and disruption to wildlife.
Community Engagement
The FAA will engage with airports, and local, state, and tribal communities to better understand community concerns about advanced air mobility operations, including noise and mitigations.
Many other stakeholders, such as advanced air mobility operators and airport and vertiport operators will have important roles in community engagement.
Q-CTRL, a quantum technologies company, has partnered with Australia’s Department of Defence to develop quantum sensors that will deliver quantum-assured navigation capability for military platforms.
The company’s partnership is a multi-year effort to field-deploy and validate miniaturized systems on defense platforms. It represents one of the first international partnerships between government and the private sector to apply quantum technology in real defense settings.
Quantum-enhanced navigation technology enables accurate vehicle positioning over long periods when GPS is unavailable. In air, space, underground and underwater, quantum navigation enables long-endurance missions that are otherwise impossible and is resilient against jamming or spoofing.
Q-CTRL announced its quantum sensing division in 2022. The company has worked with partners including Advanced Navigation and the Australian Army to demonstrate and deliver its technology for applications that include remote drone detection.
The United Kingdom’s first fully electric self-driving bus began service on public roads from the Didcot Parkway railway station in June, reported the BBC.
First Bus, the UK’s largest bus operator, said the bus’ radar, lidar and artificial intelligence technology could safely steer, accelerate and brake without human intervention.
While the bus is fully autonomous, it does have a safety driver who is able to override operations if needed.
The 15-seat bus makes a six-mile loop from the station to Milton Park in Oxfordshire, UK, and runs six days a week every 40 minutes.
By using muon-detecting ground stations synchronized with an underground muon-detecting receiver, researchers at the University of Tokyo were able to calculate a receiver’s position in the basement of a six-story building without requiring GPS signals. The muometric positioning system (muPS) team was led by Hiroyuki Tanaka.
As GNSS cannot penetrate rock or water, muon technology could be used in future search and rescue efforts, to monitor undersea volcanoes, and guide autonomous vehicles underground and underwater. Muons are fast, subatomic-sized particles that have been used to wirelessly navigate underground.
MuPS was first created to help detect seafloor changes caused by underwater volcanoes or tectonic movement. It uses four muon-detecting reference stations above ground to provide coordinates for a muon-detecting receiver underground.
Early versions of muPS required the receiver to be connected to a ground station by a wire. However, new research uses high-precision quartz clocks to synchronize the ground stations with the receiver. The four parameters provided by the reference stations plus the synchronized clocks used to measure the muons’ “time-of-flight” enables the receiver’s coordinates to be determined. This system is called the muometric wireless navigation system (MuWNS).
To test the navigation ability of MuWNS, reference detectors were placed on the sixth floor of a building while a researcher took a receiver detector to the basement floor. They slowly walked up and down the corridors of the basement while holding the receiver. Rather than navigating in real time, measurements were taken and used to calculate their route and confirm the path they had taken.
The U.S. government has visibly and physically conveyed its interest in getting air taxis into operation, through a visit of 70 people — attached to the newly formed Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Coordination group — to Archer Aviation. The group talked with the executives of the company developing the “Midnight’ air-taxi aircraft and watched a flight test.
The AAM group includes members from leading government agencies concerned with making and keeping this segment of aviation successful, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Department of Transportation (DOT), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Department of Defense (DOD) and other agencies.
AAM group visits Archer Aviation. (Image: Archer Aviation)
Gathering the views of Archer and other electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) developer executives should be an essential part of the AAM group’s information collection task. And while it’s great to see that the interagency group has every intention of promoting the AAM concept of air taxis, it would perhaps be better if the group also had access to representatives of manufacturers, developers, and those with UAS experience. It’s clear that we need to start by spreading the word, but also by including people in the group who have dedicated themselves to bringing these capabilities to market — that may make the process more efficient.
Along the way, it may also help to understand that the processes we have used in the past to get airframes like this into passenger carrying operations might not work well with this new industry. It’s understandable that it should take a lengthy period to assess, verify, qualify and certify such vehicles in the name of safety, but if companies run out of cash and fold in the interim — which is highly likely with this “start-up industry” — then shouldn’t we be looking for a better way to get these guys off the ground?
No one wants safety to be sacrificed, but could there be some way to streamline, speed up, or simplify the process without skipping essential steps — a way to get new technology into use before it’s obsolete, or a lack of start-up money dooms its progress? The forecast for the economy in the near future is in the billions of dollars. So, providing funding to improve the current processes does make sense. DOD has started to put serious effort into speeding up its acquisition process and has empowered the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to find quicker ways to bring commercial technologies into defense.
The processes used to bring new technologies into use are tried and proven, but they are lengthy. In defense, if our opposition can field things quicker than we do, they have an edge in strategy, tactics and a higher probability of winning in battle. These countries are using the same approaches in the commercial world too, and we need to be wary that they may also have a greater chance of winning the “economic war.”
Nevertheless, Archer in California and others such as Joby, also in California, and Liliam in Germany, plod on through varying stages of FAA and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification paths. An example of the effort that a company has been required to put into fulfilling the requirements of a certification agency is that of Lilium, which first applied for its Design Organization Approval (DOA) in 2017, is still churning through the qualification efforts and does not expect approval until 2025. Of course, the answer is “Don’t get on the certification ‘hamster-wheel’ unless you can stand the journey.” However, we do want these systems and vehicles to make it in order to overcome some of the traffic nightmare that we are living through in our major cities and to contribute to the growth in the economy.
Meanwhile, the great hope (even expectation) of the “flying car” is being kept alive by Doroni in Miami with its two seat H1 eVTOL. Having largely burnt through its $3.6 million StartEngine launch money, Doroni is looking for its second round of funding to build more prototypes and join the certification race. However, other single seat eVTOL flying cars have taken the easier route to certify under the FAA Ultralight category.
Doroni H1 prototype. (Image: Doroni)
The H1 has semi-autonomous capability, which Doroni claims will make its eVTOL easy to fly, and allow general sales to any car driver. With air bags, an aerodynamic fuselage — which generates lift — 10 independent propulsion systems (four double prop ducted fans and two forward thrust props), an airframe that can behave as a parachute and “dissipate energy” in case of a crash, and landing gear, the H1 also has multiple independent batteries — all aimed at safety, which will help make it through certification verification. So, if you happen to have the $250,000 proposed sale price and are willing to wait on the completion of FAA certification, you could own your own “flying car.”
Doroni just announced that they have already made 50 test flights within their manufacturing facility along that test and qualification road.
Meanwhile, Ryse Aerotech in Ohio, recently demonstrated a manned test flight of its single seat Recon eVTOL — billed as an aid to farmers, with a top speed around 58 mph, a range of about 25 miles and with the right FAA clearance it could even reach an altitude of 700 ft — an airborne ATV for inspecting crops and the like.
Recon manned test flight in June 2023. (Image: Ryse Aerotech)
The path to market that Ryse has selected, however, should see more vehicles in earlier use than Doroni’s H1. All you may need is a driver’s license to take off in a Recon because it’s qualified as an Ultralight craft — just buy and fly. Beware, you cannot fly anywhere near an airport or after dark. FAA has restrictions on Ultralight craft.
So, progress on the semi-autonomous “flying-car” front and a plea to consider the economic benefits and to look to how to improve the efficiency of the existing certification process — not a request to cut corners, rather a request to speed up the processes and save this start-up industry before it goes broke.
