Gsbt

The conflicts in Syria and Iraq have seen a proliferation of drones throughout the battlespace. Whether used for filming propaganda, as an intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance ( ISTAR ) asset, or for command and control, drones are being used by a multitude of groups for a wide variety of missions. The Mosul offensive has seen this kind of drone warfare step up a level, with Islamic State (IS) employing drones armed with an assortment of different munitions, sometimes in conjunction with other assets, to deadly effect. Armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been around for some time, probably the most famous being the V1 flying bombs used by Germany during the Second World War. Modern drones, such as the Predator, have been armed since 2001. Developments in civilian recreational drones, most notably quadcopters, in the last five years have made them affordable, reliable and widely available. The parallel development and miniaturisation of civilian came...

A Russian engineer with physical impairment has designed and developed an Iron-Man style arm. Maxim Lyashko and his team recently illustrated their vision for hi-tech yet affordable prostheses through a bionic arm developed in his lab in Moscow. The invention called Max-Bionic is believed to be the country’s first 3D printed bionic arm. Lyashko lost his arm during an accident in 2013 that prompted him to come up with a cheaper option than prosthetics developed in other countries. The bionic arm can be operated via an external power source and through what is called “phantom management”. This means that the prosthesis is programmed to respond to a person’s thoughts with the movement they intend to create.  The developer is also proud of how autonomous the whole production process has been. The prosthesis is rated at 15-hundred dollars while foreign products with the same function cost 25-thousand dollars and higher.