Jeff has been involved in aerospace journalism since the mid 1990s. Prior to joining Aviation Week, Jeff served as managing editor of Launchspace magazine and the International Space Industry Report. He has been the editor and chief of Aviation Week's Aerospace Daily & Defense Report since 2007 and has been a regular contributor to Aviation Week magazine. He received his B.A. from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
Autonomous pedestrian and traffic avoidance as well as better communications for tele-operation top the list of technologies needed for the unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, according to Scott Fish, chief UGV engineer for FCS co-lead SAIC.
Development of the Boeing X-45C and Northrop Grumman X-47B Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) vehicles is continuing for now with available fiscal 2006 funding, despite uncertainty over what happens in FY '07, when J-UCAS is scheduled to end.
The U.S. military is projecting that there will be 4,000 robotic systems in Iraq and Afghanistan before the end of fiscal 2006, as compared to 2,400 systems in theater today. There will be 22 different robots, ranging from iRobot's PackBot and the Rapid Equipping Force's MarcBot, to larger systems such as the Panther -- a modified Abrams tank equipped with a countermine flail. U.S. military forces are using robots for improvised explosive device (IED) disposal, force protection, countermine, and urban operations missions.
