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Jeep is looking at ways to integrate drones with its vehicles, as recent patent filings with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) indicate. One possible use Jeep is looking to patent is off-road spotting. Instead of a person getting out of the vehicle to survey the terrain ahead and direct the driver over the appropriate line through obstacles,

Go-to-Market Propeller is the practical support a growing industry needs – getting from innovation to sales.  In this article: the importance of market and customer discovery.

Industry leaders gathered to discuss how the drone industry can accelerate its growth and achieve commercial viability.

The company's strategy of focusing on the D/FW area would allow it to develop higher capacity hubs that could handle a higher volume of deliveries.

while we wait for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to release its much-anticipated Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for Part 108, ), it would be good to focus on what business models are making money today.

With AAM's arrival imminent and industry scale-up five to ten years away, a big question remains: How will companies profit early on?

Drones have been big news – with big market predictions – since DRONELIFE began in 2014.  Since then, the market has gone through expansion, consolidation, and expansion again.  Investments in the drone indutry have gone up, down, and sometimes sideways.

UAS Magazine in partnership with the UAS Angel Network and the Grand Forks Region Economic Development Corporation, announced this week the six companies selected to pitch to a group of angel investors and venture capital firms at the UAS Summit & Expo, taking place October 10-11, 2023, in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

The world of commercial drone operations is an exhilarating one, filled with opportunities to capture stunning aerial imagery, conduct inspections, and provide valuable services to various industries. However, despite the exciting potential, many drone pilots struggle to thrive in this business.
In this article, we will explore the seven common reasons why drone pilots fail in business and provide practical strategies to help them overcome these challenges. Whether you're a seasoned drone operator or just starting, these insights can guide you towards a prosperous future in the drone industry.

Commercial drone technology is advancing rapidly, providing cost-effective and robust capabilities for a variety of civil and military missions.

Ensuring global competitiveness and leadership in the race to bring eVTOL aircraft to the skies was one of the key themes addressed at Honeywell's Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Summit on July 18.

Commercial drone companies are testing and creating agriculture, medical, and home delivery services in countries around the world. Yet progress in the United States has been slow, in part because of a lack of clarity about federal and state roles in drone and airspace management.

Saudi Arabia is driving forward its efforts to introduce commercial operations of eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) craft

Influential industry leaders will advocate for policies that enable drone operations in the United States to scale safely and securely

Skydweller Aero Inc., an aerospace company developing solar-powered aircraft for defense and commercial industries, today announced the successful completion of its first autonomous flight test demonstrations utilizing the company's new proprietary fly-by-wire (FBW) actuation control system.

A recent report by Verizon and the FAA indicates that mobile connectivity is a valid and desirable form of control over drones and UAVs. A paper by Ericsson from 2019 explores the topic and addresses the requirements needed to support drone operations.  Drone connectivity experts Elsight agree,

In 2013, Jeff Bezos revealed plans for Prime Air – Amazon's drone delivery service. 2014 saw announcements of major logistics companies partnering with emerging drone startups. By 2017, there was radio silence. The hype largely fizzled out and drone delivery never really materialized beyond basic proof of concept tests. Only a few companies were the exception, such as Zipline, which thrived on highly-specific use cases.

The drone industry is ready to scale.  Drones are increasingly visible on worksites that range from construction to telecomm, and in residential areas for applications like delivery or power line maintenance.

The unmanned traffic management market is expected to grow from US$ 867.99 million in 2022 to US$ 3,217.40 million by 2030; it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 17.8% from 2022 to 2030.

The rapidly growing use of drones in industries and governments worldwide means that users are demanding more in terms of performance and productivity.

The Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) and SAE International will co-host the second edition of their Business of Automated Mobility Forum: Flight Path to UAM on September 27-28, 2022.

At this morning's Commercial UAV Expo Keynotes,  Commercial UAV Expo Editor Jeremiah Karpowitz and Skydio Co-Founder and CEO Adam Bry discussed how the concept of automation and reliability inform the ROI of commercial drones.

Innovative entrepreneurs continue to come up with new ways in which drones can be used to perform a wide range of jobs that had previously required human workers, more efficiently, at a lower cost and more safely, than was previously possible.

The global eVTOL aircraft market is anticipated to grow tremendously by 2033, mainly due to the launch of advanced eVTOL aircraft services. Also, continuous innovations and research in the unmanned aerial technology are expected to make the optionally piloted sub-segment of the market as the most dominant one. Market in the North America region is predicted to witness substantial growth opportunities by 2033.

UAVOS, a developer and manufacturer of security and commercial solutions based on advanced Unmanned Systems, has completed a drone-based forest inspection project to assess the general timber environment. Combining digital data and UAVOS's customized software has provided innovative analysis of forestry data. UAVOS's methodology is an advance for forestry, allowing foresters not only to optimize and improve the way data is collected and analyzed on a daily basis but also helping to reduce environmental risks and to generate economic wealth in the sector. The project has been carried out under partnership with a forestry and land management company. 

DroneNerds is a top drone reseller, offering a wide variety of services and support.  They've helped enterprise clients from many different verticals – and they've published a new ebook based on their experience supporting clients to help new entrants implement a successful enterprise drone program.  The following is a DroneNerds guest post by Senior Marketing Manager, Ana Coronel.  The full eBook, 8 Tips for UAV Program Implementation Success, can be downloaded here.

Urban electric aircraft have been a fun topic for several years, yet we also don't really actually have any urban electric aircraft on the market. One day? One of the things that perk up my ears in this field is when a major automaker gets behind a product or buy a startup. After all, automakers are in the business of making and selling millions of complex, heavily regulated, consumer vehicles. On that topic, news this week is that Hyundai Motor Group is more focused than ever on developing "commercial urban and regional air vehicles and surrounding market." The latter indicates that even if Hyundai Motor Group isn't developing the vehicles, it is developing components of the vehicles.

Supernal is a Hyundai Motor Group-owned advanced air mobility service provider.

Supernal is a Hyundai Motor Group-owned advanced air mobility service provider.

This past April, the AT&T drone team took to a field in rural Missouri to test its new Flying COW® (Cell on Wings), marking the first time AT&T has transmitted its 5G network from a drone.

The commercialization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) necessitates that their control becomes more precise and responsive. For instance, drone delivery necessitates transporting goods to a confined target area in a variety of weather conditions; drone rescue and search necessitates entering and searching collapsed buildings with limited space; and urban air mobility necessitates a flying car to closely adhere to a planned trajectory to avoid collision in the presence of strong, unpredictable winds.

Advanced air mobility (AAM) vehicles may be the aviation industry's shiny new object, but there is more to consider before they become commercially viable—not the least of which is the ground infrastructure that will support them, AAM stakeholders say.

German drone delivery company Wingcopter announced on May 11th that the Federal Aviation Administration has issued the Special Class Airworthiness Criteria for the Wingcopter 198 US unmanned aircraft. This approval marks an important milestone in the certification process of Wingcopter's flagship eVTOL delivery drone in the U.S.

Romeo Durscher, VP of Public Safety at open source drone platform Auterion is a drone industry hero, paving the way for drone use in emergency response and public safety.  In a DRONELIFE Exclusive interview from the floor of AUVSI's Xponential 2022, Durscher says that an open source drone platform like Auterion's is all about giving manufacturers the opportunity to innovate, giving customers the widest range of choice, and ultimately improving the entire workflow of commercial drone use.

Wing, one of the first providers of drone delivery service in the United States, has partnered with three Texas-based companies, Blue Bell Creameries, easyvet and Texas Health Resources, to officially launch the first commercial drone delivery service in a major U.S. metropolitan area at Frisco Station. Starting Thursday, Frisco and Little Elm residents can order a drone delivery of ice cream from Blue Bell Creameries, prescription pet medications from easyvet and first aid kits from Texas Health Resources.

NASA has announced this week that the technology licensed to Vigilant Aerospace and used in the company's FlightHorizon detect-and-avoid and airspace management product has won NASA's Commercial Invention of the Year 2021 award.

The Future of Logistics are forging a partnership that will focus on educating the global logistics industry about the value of drone delivery systems. The parties have agreed to work together to further the mission of the DLE to establish regulations and drive further growth for the drone delivery industry. The DLE and Manifest will work together to create world class education and awareness of the crucial part drones can play in upgrading and automating the last leg of the supply chain journey. Manifest 2023, taking place Jan. 30 – Feb. 1st in Las Vegas, will once again bring together the most comprehensive ecosystem of innovation and transformation in Logistics technology and end-to-end Supply Chain by organizing mega events in Las Vegas on annual basis. While DLE is a global multidisciplinary "quadruple helix" network of Companies, Universities, the Public and Investors (CUPI) with the aim to stimulate innovations, collaborations, and standardization in the Drone logistic industry on an international level.

As momentum around Advanced Air Mobility ("AAM") continues to build, regulators have taken several recent steps in support of the development and commercialization of electric vertical take-off and landing ("eVTOL") aircraft. eVTOLs are an innovative and emerging AAM technology with potential to deliver sustainable passenger and cargo transportation in urban, inter-city, and rural use cases, using electric power to take off, hover, and land vertically. The regulatory regime for eVTOLs and AAM is rapidly taking shape, and stakeholder awareness and engagement will be critical on issues such as infrastructure, streamlining regulations across jurisdictions, and aircraft certification.

When the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced at March's Global Urban Advanced Air Summit (GUAAS) that their respective organizations were working together to support future eVTOL aircraft, Joby Aviation was particularly pleased

the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), applauded the publication of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) report. The report sets the stage for the FAA to begin its process to publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that will significantly advance the uncrewed systems industry, including drones and advanced air mobility (AAM), while also maintaining the highest levels of aviation safety for all airspace users.

Volocopter, the pioneer of urban air mobility, has raised USD 170 million in the initial signing of its Series E funding round led by South Korean investor WP Investment, at a pre-money valuation of USD 1.7 billion. Composed of funds by new and existing investors, the money raised will assist with the certification of Volocopter's electric passenger air taxi and is expected to help Volocopter achieve commercial launch in first cities worldwide.

In an announcement earlier this month, the FAA announced that they would be moving forward with drone integration and unmnaned traffic management systems. Beginning this spring, FAA tests UTM systems in the field.

In a move that I personally think is a huge mistake, the Indian Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) announced that it's effectively game over for DJI and others in India.

The Agility Prime program—launched in May 2020 as a U.S. Air Force effort within the AFWERX program—has accelerated electric air taxi technologies and supported commercial investment in electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Agility Prime has worked with numerous companies to award more than $100 million in contracts, with four company recipients going so far as to achieve military airworthiness.

Domino's Pizza Enterprises Limited (Domino's) and Flirtey Inc. (SkyDrop) have today announced they have signed an agreement for the next stage of commercial drone delivery trials in New Zealand

Teledyne FLIR's VUE TZ20-R is a game changer for commercial drones, for applications from search and rescue to solar inspection.  In a recent webinar, Teledyne FLIR's Kelly Brodbeck gives 4 reasons drone pilots need radiometric thermal zoom capabilities.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Wednesday that Michigan and Ontario are collaborating on an initiative involving unmanned aerial systems (UAS), more commonly known as drones.   

Don't miss Ernest Huffman on Dawn of Drones This Week! Ernest Huffman is the Aviation Planning and Education Program Manager for the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG): tune in below on Wednesday, December 15 at 11:00 am EST!

Sustainable aviation is at a cross-roads. Small electric planes are in the air and airports are changing. But with battery technology in its teenage years, short hops between regional airports are about the extent of electric aviation's capabilities, making little New Zealand the ideal proving ground as the industry changes. Kate Green reports.

In what's being hailed as a precedent in Canada, officials at Edmonton International Airport have initiated drone deliveries from the facility, the first step in what they hope will become regular, broadening activity.