U.S. Sailors move an X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator onto an aircraft elevator aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush, May 14, 2013.
MQ-1 Predator (ETHAN MILLER/Getty Images) Developed in the 1990s primarily as a reconnaissance and surveillance platform, the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator has been in service with the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and CIA since 1995. As well as carrying an array of electro-optical sensors, the MQ-1 received an upgrade to equip it with a pair of AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. The MQ-1C Gray Eagle, an updated version of the MQ-1, was introduced in 2009. RQ-4 Global Hawk (Stocktrek Images/Getty) The Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk is an unmanned surveillance aircraft capable of surveying as much as 100,000 square kilometers (40,000 square miles) of landscape in a day. The Global Hawk matches high-resolution synthetic aperture radar and long-range electro-optical/infrared sensors with extended loiter times to provide broad coverage and systematic surveillance. Designed by Ryan Aeronautical, now a part of Northrop Gruman, RQ-4s are operated by the Air Force.
