JLENS: Military multi-intelligence blimps to fly over East Coast US - Video

A new hi-tech, Helium-filled, inflatable, surveillance blimp is scheduled to be flown over the East coast of the US in October 2014.

JLENS, or Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defence Elevated Netted Sensor System is costing $2.7 billion in total (that's around English £1.64 billion).

The new state-of-the-art blimps will patrol the shoreline and give the US administration early warning of any cruiser missiles headed towards the border.

Currently anchored to army property in Maryland, these spy blimps claim to have some of the world's most advanced surveillance equipment on board.

The JLENS system, has been designed to spot missiles carrying explosive warheads and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) capabilities, launched from as far away as the Arctic or the Gulf of Mexico.

Deceptive capability
To give you an idea of the capabilities of these blimps and the radar technology they utilise, the floating airships can spot an object from a distance of 340 miles — that's further than the driving distance between London and Newcastle.

Flying in pairs, the blimps will offer "360 degree 24/7 surveillance for 30 days at a time" according to contractors Raytheon.

Each JLENS blimp measures 74m from front to back and hovers at an elevation of 10,000 feet, with two blimps working in tandem, one can watch out for threats while the other coordinates the interception process, should it be needed.

Missile guidance
If the US Army had to respond to an incoming missile, for example, then the blimps can be used to help guide fighter jets and their on-board arsenals towards the target, neutralising the threat much earlier and more quickly than when using conventional tracking and intercept methods.

Similar technology is used to protect American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Army has assured the public that there's nothing to worry about, but privacy groups have expressed concern about the potential for the JLENS ships to track the movements of citizens.

"The primary mission... is to track airborne objects," Army officials said. "Its secondary mission is to track surface moving objects such as vehicles or boats. The capability to track surface objects does not extend to individual people."

According to the experts, details such as individual faces or car registration plates cannot be seen by the blimps even with specialised cameras fitted.

Built-in resilience
The blimps are known as aerostats, airships that are essentially lighter than air and which require tethering to the ground.

Even a well-aimed rifle shot would not be enough to bring one of the blimps down: the pressure of the helium inside is very close to the pressure of the outside air, which means rapid deflation is not possible.

"When you need persistent surveillance in a particular area, there is no better solution than the aerostat because it's there all the time,” said Ron Bendlin of TCOM, who have helped manufacture the new series of blimps.

The tethers that tie the blimps down are interesting too: they provide power to the airships and control communications to and from them via fibre optic cabling.

Each line is protected by Kevlar and an insulated sleeve. Most of the functionality of each of the blimps is managed down on the ground from the command centres.

Drones Fly In Alaska's oilfields

Handout shows miniature aircraft named Aeryon Scout Small Unmanned Aerial Systems during BP pilot testing for use of UAVs in pipeline inspection at Prudhoe Bay

Credit: Bp Alaska/Reuters

No pilot was required when the Aeryon Scout took off into the leaden skies of Alaska to inspect a stretch of oil pipeline.

The miniature aircraft was guided by an engineer on the ground, armed only with a tablet computer.

The 20-minute test flight, conducted by BP Plc last fall, was a glimpse of a future where oil and gas companies in the Arctic can rely on unmanned aircraft to detect pipeline faults, at a fraction of the cost of piloted helicopter flights.

It could become reality as soon as 2015, when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) opens up American skies for the commercial use of unmanned aircraft, popularly known as drones.

While technical shortcomings and strict regulation are likely to limit the use of drones in the near term, the rules governing public airspace will be more relaxed in the wilderness of Alaska than in the lower 48 states, industry experts say.

"We're going to take baby steps," said Gary Shane, senior project manager and chief technology officer of BP Pipelines in North America. The company plans to deploy its first drones in the Alaska North Slope within three years, he told reporters.

Laid end to end, the more than 300,000 miles of natural gas pipelines that crisscross the United States would circumnavigate the planet 12 times. There's a lot of money to be saved by reducing the number of manned flights on these routes.

Dave Kroetsch

A small, unmanned vehicle fitted with a heat-sensing camera costs about $85,000, while it costs about $3,000 to send a helicopter to monitor an oil pipeline for an hour, said Dave Kroetsch, chief executive of drone manufacturer Aeryon Labs Inc.

The drone, therefore, would pay for itself within 29 hours.

BP began researching the use of unmanned aircraft in 2006. Royal Dutch Shell Plc began a year earlier.

One aim, says Shell, is to track the movement of marine mammals to assess the impact of the company's operations in the seas off Alaska.

The Scout is the flagship product of Aeryon Labs, a private Canadian company based in Waterloo, Ontario - the same university town that gave rise to BlackBerry.

Under a meter in length, the Scout weighs 1.2 kg (2.7 lbs) - tiny when compared with the 1,020-kg MQ-1 Predator drone used by the U.S. military and manufactured by San Diego-based General Atomics.

Aeryon Labs calls the Scout a "flying robotic reconnaissance system". It has been used by Gaddafi-era Libyan rebels and seen action in a Central American drugs bust. (http://r.reuters.com/zec68t)

A camera mounted on the drone transmits a live feed to the operator. In the case of pipeline work, sensors can pinpoint the location of a suspected leak and detect signs of decay, such as cracks or rust, said Ian McDonald, Aeryon Labs' vice-president.

With four rotors and legs allowing for vertical take-off and landing, the Scout can also hover closer to a pipeline than any helicopter could. Proponents of the technology say this will help oil companies to find defects earlier than they can now.

According to a U.S. government report on pipeline safety, the public was quicker to report pipeline leaks than companies' in-house detection systems in a third of cases recorded between January 2010 and July 2012. (http://link.reuters.com/wyk48t)

Malaria Found in Blood Sucking Bug Fossilised in Amber

Researchers from Oregon State University (OSU) have discovered the fossil of a blood-sucking vampire bat fly, in the La Búcara mine - which is located in the Cordillera Septentrional mountain range of the Dominican Republic.

The researchers discovered the tiny insect frozen in amber (fossilised tree sap). The fossil is between 20 and 30 million years old.

Incidentally, the scientists also found the bat fly was carrying a strain of the malaria disease; this provides evidence that the disease may have existed even 20 million years ago.

"Bat flies are a remarkable case of specific evolution, animals that have co-evolved with bats and are found nowhere else," said George Poinar, a Professor of Zoology at OSU.

The researchers also stressed that bat flies were not common creatures and that not every bat feeds on blood.

Nevertheless, the species is widespread, with different animals appearing at different places around the world.

"Bats are mammals that go back about 50 million years, the only true flying mammal, and the earliest species had claws and climbed trees," Poinar added.

"We now know that bat flies have been parasitising them for at least half that time, and they are found exclusively in their fur. They are somewhat flat-sided like a flea, allowing them to move more easily through bat fur," he concluded.

Blood-Sucking Bat Fly Fossil Discovered in Amber

Researchers from Oregon State University (OSU) have discovered the fossil of a blood-sucking vampire bat fly, in the La Búcara mine - which is located in the Cordillera Septentrional mountain range of the Dominican Republic.

The researchers discovered the tiny insect frozen in amber (fossilised tree sap). The fossil is between 20 and 30 million years old.

Incidentally, the scientists also found the bat fly was carrying a strain of the malaria disease; this provides evidence that the disease may have existed even 20 million years ago.

"Bat flies are a remarkable case of specific evolution, animals that have co-evolved with bats and are found nowhere else," said George Poinar, a Professor of Zoology at OSU.

The researchers also stressed that bat flies were not common creatures and that not every bat feeds on blood.

Nevertheless, the species is widespread, with different animals appearing at different places around the world.

"Bats are mammals that go back about 50 million years, the only true flying mammal, and the earliest species had claws and climbed trees," Poinar added.

"We now know that bat flies have been parasitising them for at least half that time, and they are found exclusively in their fur. They are somewhat flat-sided like a flea, allowing them to move more easily through bat fur," he concluded.

Self-righting Heli-vehicle: Bounce and Fly

This self-righting probe is designed to travel deep into obstacle-ridden spaces such as caves and rubble-laden buildings to video what it finds.

It is being developed for the Army Research Lab in Aberdeen, Maryland, by Eric Beyer and Mark Costello, a pair of robotics engineers at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

The army wants this capability because today's military robots, which run on small tank-style tracks, cannot cope with irregular surfaces and obstacles such as rubble or boulders.

"They usually have trouble and get stuck with even low obstacles and walls a couple of feet high," says Costello. Small helicopters are one alternative, but continuous flying drains the batteries fast.

So their answer - which Costello freely admits is Weeble-inspired - is a rotor-powered, bottom-heavy, self-righting vehicle that spends most of its time on the ground, thus conserving battery power. Instead of flying around, it hops, using a pair of contra-rotating rotors (to avoid the need for a tail rotor) mounted on an aluminium base. All this is encased in a spherical cage made of strong carbon-fibre spars (see diagram).

To steer in flight, the robot swings a weight to tilt in the direction it needs to hop (Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics, DOI: 10.2514/1.41331). Whichever way it lands, the weight of the base rights it. Don't take our word for it - Watch the Video!

Robotic Aquatic Flying Penguins!

Springtail jetpack - family transport

Alternative jetpack designs use ducted fans, like this Springtail from Trek Aerospace, or turbojets instead of rockets. These should be able to stay in the air for longer.

Jetpack needs a boost

A rocket belt like this one was featured in the James Bond movie Thunderball in 1965, but this and later models all suffer from the same problem: they can't carry enough fuel to fly for more than around 30 seconds.