Books about Unmanned from Amazon.com

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are the most dynamic field of aerospace technology, and potentially the harbingers of new aviation technology and tactics. They have only emerged from the shadows in recent years, but in fact have been in use for decades. After some limited use in World War II, UAVs began to emerge as a substitute for manned reconnaissance aircraft in the 1950s for missions deemed too dangerous to risk an aircrew. Used in significant numbers in the Vietnam War as well as less-heralded missions such as spy flights over China in the 1950s and 1960s, the contemporary UAV began to emerge in the 1980s.

This book examines the development of this unique and mysterious technology, revealing how it has changed combat through the years and speculating on its potential to transform the nature of warfare in the future. Steven J Zaloga examines the pioneering use of UAVs conducted by the Israeli air and the use of UAVs during Operation Desert Storm. Packed with rare, recently declassified photographs and detailed full-color cutaways, this title goes on to investigate the wide deployment of UAVs over Iraq and Afghanistan today, and considers the possible future of the UAV as an actual military weapon..
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The questions of our origin and cosmic abundance of life are among the most compelling facing humanity We have determined much about the nature and origin of the Universe and our place in it, but with virtually all evidence of our origin long since gone from our world and an unimaginably vast Universe still to explore, defining answers are difficult to obtain.

For all of the difficulties facing us however, the planet Mars may act as a ‘cosmic stepping stone’ in uncovering some of the answers. Although different today, the origin and early history of both Earth and Mars may have been similar enough to consider an origin to life on both. But because Mars’ planetary processes collapsed over three billion years ago – just as life was beginning to flourish on Earth – a significant and unique record of activity from that era perhaps relevant to the origin of life still resides there today.

In recognition of this, both the US and Europe are currently engaged in one of the most ambitious programs of exploration ever undertaken. Built on our legacy of Mars exploration from the Viking era and before, a far-reaching, phased, program of robotic exploration now and over the coming decades aims at obtaining definitive answers about the origin and nature of the red planet and what it has to say about the origin and cosmic abundance of life. This book examines these issues in one of the most comprehensive treatments ever written about the planet Mars and our legacy of engagement with it, in language suitable for non-expert and expert alike.

Opening chapters consider the question of life in the Universe and the origin of life on Earth and what challenges face us in uncovering defining answers. With a realization of its importance in this, the next section examines the legacy of our engagement with Mars. From Kepler’s work on its orbit, Schiaparelli’s efforts to resolve its surface features and NASA’s Mariner and Viking programs attempting to determine whether life resides upon the surface, Mars has remained elusive, yet always prodding and extending our capabilities in exploration and our perception of our place in the Universe. Subsequent chapters consider our current understanding of the planet and the recently devised comprehensive program for scientific exploration. All recent, current and upcoming missions and the latest findings are discussed in detail, providing our best understanding yet of a vast and ancient landscape indeed characterized by significant activity relevant to our quest and which also points to a planet far from dead today. Late chapters consider NASA and ESA plans for Mars over the next thirty years, increasingly shaped by the scientific successes to date, unprecedented public interest and by issues of planetary protection. And with mounting political interest, our program for Mars may culminate in a human mission to Mars, perhaps sometime around 2040. The greatest discovery, however, remains to be made. If even one microbe is found on Mars, it will reveal a cosmic context for life with Earth as one place among many harboring life, confirming our cosmic origins and destiny.

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Even in a city of long, tall beauties, psychologist Christina McMullen is used to getting hit on. But she’s definitely not accustomed to having a hit on her. Until the day a charming stranger shows up at her door—and someone guns him down right in front of her.

For Chrissy, shootings and explosions are what pass for normal in her tempestuous relationship with sexy LAPD lieutenant Jack Rivera. But the real mayhem begins when her brother Pete blows in from the Windy City trailing clouds of trouble in the form of a pregnant girlfriend, “borrowed” money, and a mobster named “D.” Chrissy always said her family would be the death of her–but even L.A.’s sassiest shrink isn’t prepared for the truth behind her brother’s link to the dead stranger…or the killer who threatens them both..
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Evaluating current end to end support postures for certain UAV systems revealed that fielding a new capability quickly can have cibsequences for its long term support and for testing and evaluation, training, and plans for future enhancements..
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Paolo Ulivi and David Harland provide in Robotic Exploration of the Solar System a detailed history of unmanned missions of exploration of our Solar System. As in their previous book Lunar Exploration, the subject will be treated wherever possible from an engineering and scientific standpoint. Technical descriptions of the spacecraft, of their mission designs and of instrumentations will be provided. Scientific results will be discussed in considerable depth, together with details of mission management.

The book will be comprehensive, covering missions and results from the 1950s until the present day, and some of the latest missions and their results will appear in a popular science book for the first time. The authors will also cover many unflown missions, providing an indication of the ideas that proved to be unfulfilled at the time but which may still be proven and useful in the future.

Just like Lunar Exploration, this book will use sources only recently made available on the Soviet space program, in addition to some obscure and rarely used references on the European space program. Unflown European projects of the 1960s and 1970s, a subject never before treated, will also be covered.

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Price: $20.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This important military document presents the Department of Defense’s roadmap for developing and employing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) over the next 25 years (2002 to 2027). DoD’s operational UAV systems include Predator, Hunter, Shadow, and Pioneer which have demonstrated tremendous capability in recent military operations. Developmental systems such as Global Hawk and many small UAV systems have also been put to the test in recent combat and combat support operations. Taken as a whole, this technology area offers profound opportunities to transform the manner in which this country conducts a wide array of military and military support operations. As with any new technology, there is naturally some reluctance to transition to a radically new capability. The need to fully demonstrate UAVs in combat and realistic training environments is critical to the migration of this technology. The overarching goal of this roadmap, in concert with the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG), is to define clear direction to the Services and Departments for a logical, systematic migration of mission capabilities to a new class of military tools. The goal is to address the most urgent mission needs that are supported both technologically and operationally by various UAV systems. Some missions can be supported by the current state of the art in unmanned technology where the capabilities of current or near-term DoD assets are sufficient and the risk to DoD members is relative low. Other mission areas, however, are in desperate need of additional capability and present high risk to aircraft crews. These mission areas, highlighted in this roadmap, will receive significant near-term effort by the Department. This Roadmap describes the Services’ ongoing UAV efforts (Section 2) and identifies the capabilities needed by theater commanders to which UAVs could be applied (Section 3), then couples them to emerging technologies (Section 4) and operational concepts (Section 5) that could enable these capabilities within the Services’ programs. The resulting Roadmap (Section 6) links capability-enhancing technologies to the life cycles of current and projected UAV programs. It is a map of opportunities, not point designs - a description of the future potential of UAVs. This Roadmap also provides a current snapshot of the status of the Department’s numerous unmanned aviation efforts. There are over 100 detailed illustrations, charts, graphs, photographs, and tables; the document was issued in December 2002..
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There has been tremendous emphasis in unmanned aerial vehicles, both of fixed (airplanes) and rotary wing (vertical take off and landing, helicopters) types over the past ten years. Applications span both civilian and military domains, the latter being the most important at this stage.

This edited book provides a solid and diversified reference source related to basic, applied research and development on small and miniature unmanned aerial vehicles, both fixed and rotary wing. As such, the book offers background information on the evolution of such vehicles over the years, followed by modeling and control fundamentals that are of paramount importance due to unmanned aerial vehicle model complexity, nonlinearity, coupling, inhirent instability and parameter values uncertainty. Aspects of navigation, including visual-based navigation and target tracking are discussed, followed by applications to attitude estimation on micro unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous solar unmanned aerial vehicle, biomimetic sensing for autonomous flights in near-earth environments, localization of air-ground wireless sensor networks, decentralized formation tracking, design of an unmanned aerial vehicle for volcanic gas sampling and design of an on-board processing controller for miniature helicopters.

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Price: $119.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This up-to-date, revised, and expanded electronic book on DVD-ROM presents an extensive library of documents and publications covering all aspects of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and systems (UAS) – including military craft, NASA projects, and research vehicles. This incredible collection of official documents and photographs contains about three gigabytes of material. Coverage includes: NEW 2005 MILITARY UAS ROADMAP - This important military document, released in August 2005, presents the DOD plan for developing and employing UAVs and related vehicles, including airships, over the next 25 years. UAV systems include Predator, Hunter, Shadow, Pioneer, Global Hawk, Fire Scout, X-45, X-47, FCS, Gnat, GHMD, X-50 Dragonfly, Hummingbird, Cormorant, DP-5X, Long Gun, Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR), Eagle Eye, Neptune, Maverick, Tern, Mako, Snow Goose, Dragon Eye, Batcam. There are over 100 detailed illustrations, charts, graphs, photographs, and tables. UAV RELIABILITY STUDY – Data based on flight operations experience to guide future systems development. AIRSPACE INTEGRATION PLAN FOR UNMANNED AVIATION (11/04) DOD UAV RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, OPERATIONAL SYSTEMS, UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS (UAS) PLANNING TASK FORCE – including current use in Afghanistan, Iraq, research plans, technical reports and papers. NAVAIR PMA-263 RESEARCH: Flash movie presentations; Live weapons tests; Fire Scout, Close Range, BAMS, GHMD Maritime, US Coast Guard Predator and Alaskan demonstrations; Tactical Control Systems (TCS). JOINT UNMANNED COMBAT AIR SYSTEMS (J-UCAS) DARPA/Air Force/Navy effort to demonstrate the technical feasibility, military utility and operational value for a networked system of high performance, weaponized unmanned air vehicles for combat missions, including Suppression of Enemy Air. It includes the Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) and X-45 programs. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION MEASUREMENT (ARM-UAV) –long endurance UAV above 60,000 feet, conducted with General Atomics - Aeronautical Systems "GNAT" and "Altus" UAVs. Extensive and well-illustrated coverage of major field measurement campaigns. NASA WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITY listings of UAV suppliers, capabilities, and tests of Exdrone. SURVIVABILITY AND SAFETY: WPAFB; Aviation Applied Technology Directorate; Survivability and Lethality Analysis Directorate (SLAD); SURVIAC analysis center; DOT&E Operational Test and Evaluation; 46th Test Wing, Eglin AFB. This incredible DVD-ROM is packed with over 28,000 pages reproduced using Adobe Acrobat PDF software - allowing direct viewing on Windows and Macintosh systems. Our news and educational CD-ROM and DVD-ROM discs are privately compiled collections of official public domain U.S. government files and documents - they are not produced by the federal government. They are designed to provide a convenient user-friendly reference work, utilizing the benefits of the Adobe Acrobat format to uniformly present thousands of pages that can be rapidly reviewed, searched by finding specific words, or printed without untold hours of tedious research and downloading. Vast archives of important public domain government information that might otherwise remain inaccessible are available for instant review no matter where you are. This book-on-a-disc format makes a great reference work and educational tool. There is no other reference that is as fast, convenient, comprehensive, thoroughly researched, and portable - everything you need to know, from the federal sources you trust..
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