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Animal Dynamics today announces a collaboration with the University of Manchester to improve the realism of its simulated environment and accelerate the commercial rollout of its Uncrewed Aircraft System, Stork STM.  

Drone connectivity experts Elsight on flight beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), and how drones and mobile networks make BVLOS feasible and safe, right now.

This past Thursday saw Vantis, North Dakota's statewide unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) system, formally celebrate the grand opening of its Mission and Network Operations Center (MNOC) at GrandSky Business and Aviation Park.

In the fifteenth century, artist and engineer Leonardo da Vinci envisioned a craft that flew using a single helix-shaped propeller — the aerial screw — viewed by many as the first vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) machine ever designed.
In 2020, the Vertical Flight Society's (VFS) 37th Annual Student Design Competition challenged students from across the world to reimagine da Vinci's design. Using modern-day analytical and design tools, students were tasked to design and demonstrate a feasible modern-day VTOL vehicle based on the aerial screw concept and demonstrate the consistency of its physics.

Engineers at Caltech, ETH Zurich, and Harvard are developing artificial intelligence (AI) that will allow autonomous drones to use ocean currents to aid their navigation, rather than fighting their way through them.

For the past few years, we have been talking about two distinct industries when it comes to small and large drones. The reasons behind that are varied, but the way in which unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and air taxis that define advanced air mobility (AAM) ecosystems can and will operate in the same airspace have been positioned as distinct. But is it right to stay focused on these differences rather than their similarities?  

A U.S. Air Force pilot recently successfully flew an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft during remote pilot in control (rPIC) training, marking the first government flight of a remotely piloted eVTOL

SkyDrive — a Tokyo-based aero tech startup — unveiled its ultra-light and compact flying vehicle, Model SD-03, that had completed testing for piloted flight. It is the first time for the company to showcase its full-scale SD-03 in countries other than Japan.

With a new push from the AUVSI Florida Peninsula Chapter, the Sunshine State is poised to expand its leadership role in the unmanned ground, air, and sea-based systems sector.

Policy makers and investors take note: regional air mobility is vastly more scalable, an actual path to a decarbonized future and much lower risk.

SkyGrid, a Boeing, SparkCognition company, announced today that it has released a new autonomous remote UAV operations capability to allow flight managers and operators to control and execute flights from remote locations. Using artificial intelligence and a broad array of airspace-related data feeds, SkyGrid is enabling safe remote operations for missions involving single and multiple drones.

HEISHA TECH recently released its second generation product HEISHA DNEST2 on 28th September, 2021. DNEST2 is a ready-to-use, fully automated, remote aerial flight data collection system. The product takes drone operation to a whole new level, fully eliminating the need for a pilot. DNEST2 is not only a drone charging station, but also a drone smart home.

With effect from September 2021, FIXAR equips all its outdoor drones with the additional FIXAR BlackBox system for UAV flight data logging enabling to increase traceability and accountability of the aircraft and contribute to safer air traffic.

With its planned SPAC merger just a week away, eVTOL air taxi company Archer has announced a new deal with the US Air Force, a vertiport partnership with Reef, and a preliminary win in its court battle with Wisk over allegedly stolen designs.

City skies in the not-so-distant future will start to come alive as air taxis and drones zip around delivering people and goods faster than ever. Many of these new aircraft in the future sky will have the ability to take off from landing pads on tall buildings and land on another, much like a helicopter, but with the added ability to transition to forward flight like that of an airplane—all while being powered electrically.

Wichita State University will receive $684,000 from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for three programs aimed at increasing safety measures for the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

Under the FAA's Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot Program earlier this week, Iris Automation conducted a live drone flight demonstration for the City of Reno Fire Department of its Casia onboard Detect-and-Avoid collision avoidance system, which enables safe beyond visual line of sight drone operations.

In hopes of being on the cutting edge of technology, the city of Monroe, Wash., is now operating an Unmanned Aerial System program. The drones are available for a wide variety of uses in the city.

A survey conducted by the DRONERESPONDERS non-profit program shows that the size and scope of public-safety unmanned aerial system (UAS) programs are increasing, but funding for those programs remains an issue.

In this recent commentary, AUVSI's Brian Wynne says that as Congress considers the National Defense Authorization Act for FY21, it should fully fund unmanned maritime systems research and development efforts to allow innovation to flourish and for military and commercial operators alike to reap the benefits.

In a narrowly focused and carefully crafted survey, almost 300 U.S.-based, law enforcement, fire and emergency services personnel answered some critical questions about how public safety drone programs in the AIRT and DRONERESPONDERS Spring 2020 Public Safety UAS Survey.

In this week's episode of "Drones in America", host Grant Guillot speaks with FAA Director Jay Merkle to get his insight regarding what drone users can expect in regards to Operations Over People, Remote ID, and the utilization of drones in public safety.

A new patent released today on the Chinese Patent Office's database suggests that DJI could be working on an automatic docking station and drone that uses magnets to accurately land a drone at a designated docking station.

Interest in applying unmanned vehicles to combat the coronavirus pandemic continues to grow, but challenges to proper and effective implementation remain.

In April 2019, an Oklahoma City police helicopter reportedly came face to face with a drone operating in the OKC night sky, requiring the helicopter pilot to take evasive action to avoid a collision. A proposed FAA law known as Remote ID could make a big difference in drone encounters like these in the near future.

Engineering students at South Dakota State University are designing a drone large enough to carry a human for their capstone senior design project through a nearly $80,000 grant from NASA.

Imagine if you could turn on a drone, and by itself, it could rise off the floor, map an area, and fly itself on any assigned mission? That's the goal of the teams that competed for $1 million this past December in the inaugural Artificial Intelligence Robotic Racing Circuit, called AlphaPilot for short.

Whether you're flying a manned or an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the laws of physics are the same, and most, if not all, risks are also the same.

On the face of it, NASA's newest probe sounds incredible. Known as Dragonfly, it is a dual-rotor quadcopter roughly the size of a compact car hat is completely autonomous and nuclear powered, and will hover above the surface of Saturn's moon Titan when it arrives in 2034, eight years after its launch date.

On a humid afternoon in August, pilots are racing drones they built themselves at McAdams Park in central Wichita. The racers are part of ICT FPV (short for first-person view), a local chapter of MultiGP, the largest drone-racing league in the world.

The Chula Vista Police Department is testing centrally dispatched, remotely piloted drones as a tool to expand and better prioritize responses to calls.

AeroVironment, Inc., a global leader in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for both defense and commercial applications, announced it has acquired Pulse Aerospace, LLC, a developer and supplier of small VTOL UAS, for $25.7 million in cash, including milestone-based earn-out payments of $5 million. AeroVironment financed the transaction entirely from available cash on hand.

Public safety agencies need a UAS program with hardware and software purpose-built for public safety needs. Thanks to a new municipal financing program specifically for public safety, agencies also have a new way to afford the UAS program they need. Here are some factors agencies should consider when evaluating whether to purchase commercially-available drones or to make an investment in a UAS program designed especially for public safety.

An associate computer engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate was recognized as a Modern Day Technology Leader at the Black Engineer of the Year Awards (BEYA) STEM Global Competitiveness Conference held Feb. 7-9 in Washington, D.C.

Pocket-size drones are on their way to US Army soldiers, offering a better view of the battlefield and giving them a lethal edge over enemies.

Boeing recently announced it had successfully completed the first test flight of its autonomous passenger air vehicle prototype in Manassas, Va.

(TNS) — State officials said this week a new long-term plan to push unmanned vehicle technologies could boost resources and lead to more investment in Clark County, which houses the Ohio Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center.
DriveOhio, an entity developed within the Ohio Department of Transportation, is tasked with pushing new technologies like autonomous vehicles to improve Ohio's transportation system. Springfield's UAS Center, at 4170 Allium Ct. serves as a hub for research and testing to advance drone technology for commercialization and looks for ways to integrate the technology into national airspace.

DriveOhio, the state's autonomous vehicle research office, announced a strategic partnership with the Ohio UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) Center to research how drones can fit into smart air and ground traffic control.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is leading an ambitious new study to use drones to track tornadoes in the Great Plains. More than 50 scientists and students from four universities, including the University of Oklahoma, will participate in the study, dubbed TORUS for Targeted Observation by Radars and UAS of Supercells.

The Pentagon believes that the "future of war" involves mind-controlled unmanned aerial vehicles, a capability that would represent a major leap forward in the development of advanced military technology. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has even overseen trials that could serve as the preliminary steps to developing this type of technology.

Leonardo DRS has received an additional $13 million to continue engineering and testing a vehicle-mounted system that the U.S. Army hopes will protect soldiers from small drones, according to a July 31 Defense Department statement.

If you forgot about NASA after all of the noise SpaceX has made over the past months, yes, they still do exist and yes, they still do cool stuff! In a rover that is set to depart for Mars in 2020, a small drone has been developed to help the robot on its mission on the red planet. 

A radar shield to detect low-flying targets, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), has been put into operation above all major Russian cities, a senior Russian military official has told TASS.

Amazon, UPS and others are exploring using drones to deliver packages to people's doorsteps, but some companies are thinking bigger — autonomous cargo drones the size of small airplanes.

A recent test at a Finland airport showed the continuing effectiveness of unmanned traffic management solutions.

DriveOhio will use unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to understand how to manage traffic, roadway incidents and roadway conditions along the 33 Smart Mobility Corridor beginning July 1.
 
The three-year $5.9 million project is intended to complement autonomous and connected vehicle tests along the 35-mile stretch between Dublin and East Liberty in Ohio.

Rockwell Collins has announced that it has recently participated in two weeks of critical testing for the NASA Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) program. As part of the test flights, Rockwell Collins served as the UAS Service Supplier (USS) for the safe management of a UAS flying beyond visual line of sight.

Right outside of Agadez, Niger, in the scrublands of the Sahara, the U.S. airforce is building a massive 2,200-acre drone base, costing $110 million and making it the largest troop largest troop labor construction project in U.S. history, according to the Associated Press. The base should be completed in the next couple of month but as you can imagine, building an airfield in the desert tends to be very complicated. The project already is over $22 million budget and delayed by one year. The new drone base will be used to target extremists deep into West and North Africa, regions that are currently hard to reach with drones.

Technology dveloper Raytheon is developing a new technology suite capable of directing and controlling swarms of small autonomous air and ground vehicles.

A new National Academy of Sciences report suggests that small, consumer-grade drones could be used in swarms to effectively attack American infantry with onboard bombs.