Coverage

Air Systems

Aircraft architectures, propulsion, recovery, command links, detect-and-avoid, and the systems that make uncrewed flight useful.

Aircraft and propulsion
Launch and recovery
Airspace-enabling technology

Technical composition of an uncrewed aircraft and its main system interfaces

Primary and cross-domain reporting

Current analysis for this beat.

NASA's Ikhana remotely piloted aircraft flying toward the camera during a 2018 detect-and-avoid flight campaign over California

Photo: NASA / Ken Ulbrich

Air SystemsAugust 31, 202611 min read

Detect and Avoid for Civil Drones: A Practical Guide to DAA Architecture

How civil drone teams can compare cooperative surveillance, radar, optical, acoustic, ground-based, and hybrid detect-and-avoid architectures.

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Yellow Osprey MK-III uncrewed aircraft on a runway before an alternative-navigation flight test at Eglin Air Force Base in 2025

Photo: U.S. Air Force photo by Samuel King Jr.

Air SystemsAugust 31, 202612 min read

GNSS-Denied Navigation for Unmanned Aircraft: What Replaces GPS?

GNSS-denied aircraft do not replace GPS with one sensor. Learn how inertial, visual, terrain, radio, and integrity layers form a resilient navigation stack.

The appearance of U.S. Department of War (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement.

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