TARGET DRONE PASSES TEST ADAPTED DESIGN NEEDS NO GUIDANCE FROM CREW ON GROUND.Byline: Daily News PALMDALE - Representatives for Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) is an aerospace and defense conglomerate that is the result of the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company is the third largest defense contractor for the U.S. say the company has demonstrated a computer-controlled drone designed to attack several targets without intervention from its human operators. Developed and demonstrated within an eight-week period, the system is derived from the BQM-34 Firebee aerial target, which has been produced for more than 40 years. The 36-minute flight at an undisclosed Department of Defense test range demonstrated the 600-mph jet-powered drone's ability to navigate by itself and drop its bombs, then return. ``This project demonstrated both the versatility of the BQM-34 airframe and the fast reaction development capability in place at the company's Unmanned Systems facility in San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. ,'' said Al Nikolaus, Northrop Grumman's Firebee program manager. ``This was a team effort, integrating Firebee parts from all three military services built over a period of 30 years plus newly manufactured parts and modern, autonomous navigation systems A GPS-based electronic system in a car or truck that provides a real time map of the vehicle's current location as well as step-by-step directions to a programmed destination. See GPS and vehicle tracking. ,'' said Doug Fronius, Northrop Grumman's director for Targets programs. The project was developed at Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems sector's Unmanned Systems unit in San Diego. Workers installed 1970s-era bomb rack-equipped wings on BQM-34S Firebee targets. Large composite payload (1) Refers to the "actual data" in a packet or file minus all headers attached for transport and minus all descriptive meta-data. In a network packet, headers are appended to the payload for transport and then discarded at their destination. pods for the drone were manufactured for Northrop Grumman by Grove Aircraft in El Cajon El Cajon (ĕl kähōn`), city (1990 pop. 88,693), San Diego co., S Calif.; inc. 1912. Electronic equipment, aircraft parts, irrigation equipment, furniture, and men's suits are among its manufactures. . Software was modified to make the drone able to guide itself and drop bombs without receiving commands from the ground. Resembling a small airplane airplane, aeroplane, or aircraft, heavier-than-air vehicle, mechanically driven and fitted with fixed wings that support it in flight through the dynamic action of the air. , the BQM-34 Firebee is more than 20 feet long and can be launched from the ground or dropped from an airplane. It lands by parachute parachute, umbrellalike device designed to retard the descent of a falling body by creating drag as it passes through the air. The development of modern aircraft has led to many experiments in the aerodynamic problems of parachute design, with the result that the and normally is picked up by a helicopter that grabs the parachute before the craft hits the ground. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: (color) This Northrop Grumman BQM-34 Firebee target drone is similar to the one used in a recent test. |
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