Navy Experiments with DIY Drones
The Navy Warfare Development Command’s Navy Center for Innovation will demonstrate John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory's Cloak Blade Micro-Copter on September 24. The demonstration will be broadcast live at 2:00 pm eastern via the Defense Connect Online system at https://connect.dco.dod.mil/nwdcinnovationseries . Cloak Blade is an "inherently stealthy" commercial octo-rotor UAV intended to operate at sea to provide ships with pop-up over the horizon situational awareness using first person streaming video. The UAV will investigate contacts of interest at 10-30 nautical miles range with two to four hour mission endurance and a ceiling of more than 3,000 feet. The UAV can be flown by AES-encrypted wireless or autonomous flight controls and can maneuver evasively to avoid small arms fire. The demonstration model is currently equipped with commercial off-the-shelf sensors including Hero HD and Sony 300 digital zoom video cameras providing real time full mot...