A marine drone system utilizing an unmanned aerial vehicle to provide visual feedback for conditions including temperature, depth, and conditions which may suggest favorable fishing conditions, such as weed lines, flotsam, breaks, and objects, such as birds or fish. The system utilizes a plurality of sensors, including, but not limited to, cameras, laser, GPS, radar, and LIDAR. The visual feedback may be shown as a video fees or a map, wherein the feedback is shown as a visual backgrounds, wherein an overlay of interactive functions provides information regarding the conditions. The system also includes method steps for implementing, obtaining, and displaying the information. The system hardware includes the unmanned aerial vehicle, a base station, and a hardwired tether between the unmanned aerial vehicle and the base station providing power and bi-directional data transfer.

A test flight system includes a test aircraft, and an atmospheric conditions-detecting vehicle that is separate and distinct from the test aircraft. The atmospheric conditions-detecting vehicle is configured to be deployed during a test flight of the test aircraft to detect atmospheric conditions of an environment in which the test aircraft operates during the test flight.

Systems and methods for a weapon mountable tactical heads-up display (HUD) are provided. The HUD may include a 9 degrees of freedom (9DOF) sensor, a target library, and a target finder visualization. The target library may store respective ballistic information for each target of a plurality of targets. The respective ballistic information may include a target vector for each target of the plurality of targets. The target vector may be calculated based on data received from the 9DOF sensor. The target finder visualization may allow a shooter to locate a selected target of the plurality of targets. The target finder visualization may be based on the target vector.

A High Altitude Pseudo Satellite (HAPS) aircraft is disclosed, the aircraft including at least one aeroelastic span loaded fixed wing, an aspect ratio greater than 15 and wing loading less than 6 kg/m.sup.2, where the at least one wing has a plurality of spoilers distributed across the span of the wing and each spoiler being chordwise located adjacent the centre of pressure of the wing. The HAPS aircraft further includes a control system for controlling the spoilers, sensors which allow at least one of the quantity or quantities selected from the group comprising the amount of lift at points or regions along the wing span the pitch and roll at points or regions along the wing span, the bending and torsional strain at points or regions along the wing span, or the net speed and roll and pitch angle of the wing to be determined by the control system, and the spoiler being activatable to reduce the lift experienced by the wing in the location of the spoiler in response to the quantities determined by control system.

Methods, systems, apparatuses, and computer program products for increasing awareness of an environmental condition for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) are disclosed. In a particular embodiment, a method of increasing awareness of an environmental condition for a UAV includes an environmental awareness controller utilizing data associated with a first UAV to detect an environmental condition at a location associated with the first UAV. In this embodiment, the environmental awareness controller also updates environmental condition information associated with the location to indicate detection of the environmental condition at the location and provides the updated environmental condition information to a device associated with second UAV.

An unmanned aerial system includes an unmanned aerial vehicle having a body and a primary propulsion system coupled to the body. The primary propulsion system includes at least one propeller and at least one motor coupled to the at least one propeller. The unmanned aerial system also includes a pair of landing gears coupled to the body of the unmanned aerial vehicle. Each landing gear of the pair of landing gears includes a buoyant elongated float. The unmanned aerial system also includes a SONAR device coupled to the unmanned aerial vehicle.

Embodiments of a system, device and method improve weather modeling approaches for use by air vehicles to mitigate weather hazards and/or optimize air vehicle operations. Various embodiments collect a set of independent measurements of atmospheric parameters of interest, collect a set of onboard measurements from one or more non-traditional atmospheric sensors onboard an air vehicle, process the collected measurements to identify values of selected atmospheric parameters and generate a model for relating raw sensor outputs from the non-traditional atmospheric sensors to the atmospheric parameters of interest.

A control system acquires predicted tsunami information, and generates a flight plan for unmanned aerial vehicles. The flight plan includes flight paths along safety boundaries between an expected damage area and a safe area. The expected damage is an area expected to be damaged by the tsunami indicated by the predicted tsunami information. The safe area is an area to be safe from damage caused by the tsunami. The control system transmits the flight plan to the unmanned aerial vehicles.

A computer-implemented method for effective agriculture and environment monitoring. The method may comprise measuring a desired variable over an area of interest using a remote inspection platform according to an inspection plan, predicting an occlusion of the remote inspection platform, and in response to the predicted occlusion, determining whether to invoke a local inspection platform to complete the inspection plan. The occlusion in some embodiments interrupts the inspection plan for the remote inspection platform.

A foldable aerial vehicle may take the form of a flying wing. The flying wing includes port and starboard wings having port and starboard root and tip portions. The port and starboard root and tip portions are hinged one to another so that the span axes of all of the root and tip portions are parallel in the stowed condition and so that the tip portions are separated by the root portions in the deployed condition to define the flying wing. The wings are not symmetrical about the longitudinal axis of the vehicle, with the span axes of the root and tip portions being stepped from one wing tip to the other. Folding winglets are disposed on opposing wing tips, with the higher winglet extending in an upward direction and the lower winglet extending in the downward direction.