Monday, August 15, 2011

Military's Maple-Seed-Inspired Drone



Sneak Preview: Military's Maple-Seed-Inspired Drone, Plus More to Come at UAV Show Next Week -- Popular Science

After years of development and military funding setbacks, defense contractor Lockheed Martin is finally ready to debut its maple seed-inspired drone. The one-winged, one-foot-long SAMARAI drone just flew a test flight for the Associated Press ahead of its official unveiling at an unmanned vehicle conference next week.

The asymmetric UAV is modeled after maple seeds, called samara, that fly off trees and twirl through the air with the utmost efficiency. Originally, the SAMARAI was envisioned as a seed-sized drone that could deliver a 2-gram payload and send back streaming video, but that has since changed to a much bigger, whining drone.

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My Comment: It appears that the future for UAVs is to be miniaturized .... the smaller the better.

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