The destructive power of drones frequently puts this type of technology in the\r\nnews but not all of them are designed to deliver missiles. Other uses for UAVs\r\n- or unmanned aerial vehicles – range from search and rescue, surveillance, to aerial\r\ntargeting and aeronautical research.
A number of these craft were on show at this week’s\r\nFarnborough Airshow in the UK – and this image shows the 90kg turbojet-powered flapless\r\nDemon, which was developed by Cranfield University, BAE Systems and the University\r\nof Manchester as part of the five-year FLAVIIR project to develop a maintenance-free\r\nUAV that incorporated novel technologies.
The Demon successfully completed two flights and became the first\r\nrepresentation of a full-size aircraft to achieve controlled roll manoeuvres\r\nwithout moving control surfaces. Instead of flaps, the Demon manoeuvred using\r\nfluidic devices that exploited the Coanda effect.
Toby Wolpe is a senior reporter at TechRepublic in London. He started in technology journalism when the Apple II was state of the art.
