Unmanned X.

This is coolbert:

Here is a listing, probably not totally inclusive, but mostly so, of American UAV manfuacturers.

[there is one Canadian manufacturer and one joint American/Israeli manufacturer.]

This listing is quite long. Contrasts markedly when one considers that there only three U.S. companies remaining to build the conventional military aircraft now in use. Those being Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrup/Grumman.

That so many concerns are interested in the UAV market should not be surprising. For the most part, YOU DO NOT need assets on a massive scale to engineer and build the current models of UAV.

Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrup/Grumman all need vast resources such a plants of enormous size, capital and credit, a very large highly trained work force, etc.

UAV development, engineering, manufacture does not require for the most part such large resources. Small will do, perhaps is even better. Your responses to challenges will be quicker, more agile, and more flexible. BIGGER is not better with UAV.

It would seem to me that if you are a young aspiring aeronautical engineer, UAV might well be the way to go.

[the famous aircraft designer and pilot Dick Rutan reputedly employees only young and recently graduated aeronautrical engineers.]

To the list:

1. Boeing Corporation.

DarkStar.

The project was terminated by the Defense department.

ScanEagle.




2. Lockheed Martin .

EADS Eagle UAV.

High-flying, long endurance UAV. It was built for defense use, by EADS Corporation (UK).

3. TRW.

Has been taken over by Northrop/Grumman.

4. Bell Textron.

Eagle Eye UAV

This was mostly designed for defense purposes. Bell Textron claims that Eagle Eye is the “unofficial VTOL UAV World Speed Record Holder”.

5. Bombardier.

6. SAIC .

Vigilante UAV.

7. Northop Grumman .

Global Hawk.

BQM-34 Firebee.

BQM-74E.

Firescout.

Pegasus .

All designed for the defense industry.

8. IAT (International Aerospace Technologies).

MK-105 Flash.

MK-106 Hit A/B/C UAVs.

short-range multirole UAVs, and have TV and IR pods built for them.

9. Sikorsky.

10. AAI.

Shadow 200 .



Surveillance and target acquisition UAV.

Shadow 400.

Shadow 600.

Multirole UAVs.

11. Lear-General Atomics ASI.

ALTUS UAV.

Used for atmospheric research.

Also helped in the design of Predator, GNAT and PROWLER UAVs.

12. Autometric.

13. Schweitzer.

Fire Scout UAV

Mostly used for defense applications.

Argus UAV.

Used for civilian applications, mainly agriculture.

14. S-TEC/Meggitt Avionics .

15. Scaled Composites.

Proteus.

16. AeroVironment.

UAV website.

Helios UAV.

Centurion UAV.

Pathfinder UAV.

They are being used for telecommunications, remote sensing and atmospheric management.

Pointer UAV

Production-ready electric UAV for reconnaissance, surveillance and remote monitoring.

17. Frontier.

W570 UAV, Hummingbird VTOL UAV, Maverick VTOL UAV: Long endurance UAV.

18. Accurate Automation.

LoFLYTE.

HiFLYTE.

GLOV.

Mainly used for defense purposes.

19. Aerodyne.

No longer manufactures UAVs, but does provide support and expertise in developing UAVs.

20. Aurora.

Perseus UAV.

High altitude UAV for atmospheric and weather research and telecommunications research missions.

Theseus UAV.

High-altitude UAV, long endurance UAV used for atmospheric research. It has a fractional ownership program that may be helpful in bringing down the price.

Chiron UAV.

Low-cost UAV for scientific research.

21. Moller.

Aerobot UAV

Small UAVs used for remote sensing, observation, inspection, and photography.

22. Continental.

BOSS UAV.

23. Piasecki Aircraft Corporation .

Sea Spray UAV.

24. USBI (United Space Boosters Corp).

Dragon.

SDW-M.

According to website information, it has been taken over by Lockheed Martin.

25. BAI.

AEROS UAV.

Light weight UAV for civil scientific applications. Can carry a TV camera.

Exdrone UAV.

Symmetrical delta-wing air vehicle designed for military purposes. High-endurance UAV with reprogrammable GPS autopilot and bell-mounted color TV camera.

Javelin UAV.



Low cost UAV designed for providing live aerial video for news media, law enforcement agencies and researchers.

Half-scale UAV.

Used for training purposes by military. Has low-cost video, IR and RF signature systems.

TERN UAV.

Recoverable UAV used for defense purposes.

26. Insitu.

Aerosonde UAV.

Miniature UAV designed for weather forecasting. Second-generation version has capability for low-cost and low-weight video and other data measurement pods.

Seascan UAV.

Designed for shipboard imaging reconnaissance. But it has also been used for land surveillance.

27. Bosch .

Long Endurance Airborne Reconnaissance System (LEARS).

Designed for two purposes - civilian and military. Civil application is to provide autonomous flight and imagery collection over specified locations, then return to base where imagery is processed.

Wing Articulating Surveillance Platform WASP.



Low weight UAV that has been used in dust conditions for data collection.

28. Orion.

SeaBat.

Project Elliot.

VTOL UAVs for maritime applications.

29. Schiebel Technology Inc.

Camcopter UAV.

Built for the navy for military purposes.

30. D-Star.

UAV website.

D’HumBug UAV.

D’HumBat UAV.

D’HumFisher UAV.

UAVs designed for military purposes.

31. Chapy Corporation.

HAWK-I H-7F UAV.

HAWK-I H-7H UAV.

32. Carolina Unmanned Vehicles Inc.

SLURS UAV.

Man-potable reconnaissance UAV with monochrome and color video cameras.

33. Daedalus.

Truck / Dakota

Used for Reconnaissance/ Surveillance and aeronautical research.

34. Stanford University’s DragonFly UAV project.

Dragonfly UAV.

From Stanford’s website, this is being used for design purposes, and is not a full-scale UAV. It also does not seem to have capabilities for video streaming.

35. Drake.

Owl OPV concept UAV.

Not in production.

36. Freewing.

UAV website.

Scorpion UAV.

Experimental multirole UAV.

37. UAV Solutions.

Coyote UAV.

Can record video, and be used for missions.

38. Hummingbird.

Sky Robot UAV.

In production. Has IR sensors.

39. Lutronix .

Kolibri-2.

Small UAV designed for testing purposes for DARPA.

A new UAV is in production, but has not been named.

40. Mission Technologies.

Hellfox UAV.

Close-range tactical UAV.

Mini-Vanguard UAV.

Close-range tactical UAV.

Backpack Buster UAV.



Man-portable close-range surveillance UAV.

41. MLB .

Bat.

Flyswatter.

MiniSpotter.

Heli-rocket.

Scout 2.

UAVs designed for military purposes.

42. Remote Intelligent Systems Inc. (RISI).

Rogue UAV.

43. Sadler.

Sadler UAV-18-50 Drone.

44. DRS Unmanned Technologies.

Sentry UAV.

Designed for “tactical short range optical/electronic surveillance, radio relay (with long duration fuel and configuration), fully autonomous low altitude target drone, and as an inexpensive training system designed to maintain operational currency for larger, more expensisive-to-operate air vehicles.”

Sentry HP UAV.

For greater payload capacity.

Neptune UAV.

Maritime UAV.

45. BAE Systems .

UAV website.

Denel Kentron Seeker II .


Eagle ARV.

Phoenix.

STN-Atlas family.

Skyeye.

Combat UAVs.

MicroSTAR.

Micro UAV, for supporting an individual soldier in a battle environment.

46. Coptervision [Canadian manufacturer].

Manufactures small helicopters with video capability.

Micropilot.

Claims to provide the lowest cost UAV in the market called MPUAV. Includes wireless video transmission.

MPUAV.

Low cost UAV costing $7.5K. With ultrasonic altitude sensor, wireless video camera unit and 2.4 GHz radio modem link, it costs $12.25K.

[break between # 46 and # 50. Those companies were subsidiaries of foreign firms.]

50. Pioneer UAV.

Jointly owned by AAI and Israel Aircraft Industries. Designed for short/medium range surveillance and intelligence gathering.

[joint U.S. and Israeli ownership.]

51. Sparta Composite Products.

Working together with AeroVironment.

Dragon Eye UAV.

Used by the Navy for military purposes.

And this is just a listing for U.S. UAV manufacturers. To include foreign concerns would create a blog entry of just monstrous proportions. It can readily be seen that UAV is the field of the aeronautical future, with just enormous growth potential.

Stock options anyone??!!

coolbert.