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Flying BVLOS is still an exception, but enabling technologies are paving the way for routine BVLOS operations. The number of Part 107 BVLOS waivers issued by the FAA more than doubled in 2022 and increased 17% from January to March of this year.

AgEagle Aerial Systems Inc. (NYSE American:UAVS) ("AgEagle" or the "Company"), an industry-leading provider of full stack flight hardware, sensors, and software for commercial and government use, today announced that the Company has won a federal contract from the U.S. Department of Defense's ("DoD") Defense Innovation Unit ("DIU") to produce and deliver eBee™ VISION fixed-wing drones and customized command and control software that proves compatible and is in full compliance with the DoD Robotic and Autonomous System-Air Interoperability Profile ("RAS-A IOP").

Weather can bring flight times to a standstill. To TruWeather Solutions, that downtime is called the "weather tax". As uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) and advanced air mobility (AAM) operations scale, and schedules become tighter, this "weather tax" - can quickly add up. And time equals money.

As MatrixSpace has developed a name in the industry, their engineers have developed a ground-breaking product.  Today, they've launched a radar  – small, lightweight, and incredibly powerful.  The ability to detect the size, precise location, and the movement of objects could be a game changer for advanced drone operations and airspace awareness systems.

An international team of scientists has deployed an Autel Robotics drone to monitor activities on Costa Rica's Irazú Volcano.

uAvionix today announced that the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) Beyond Program received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations using uAvionix SkyLine™ Managed C2 and Detect & Avoid sensors on the Emerging Aviation Technology Center UAS Test Range. This marks the second BVLOS waiver by the FAA for the combination of uAvionix SkyLine software and SkyLink™ hardware in as many months and allows drone pilots operating at the CNO range to leverage only an Electronic Observer while meeting requirements to remain well-clear of crewed aircraft while the uncrewed aircraft is beyond the pilot's visual range of sight.

Better weather sensing could reduce 'weather tax' in the form of delays and cancellations.

Ouster (NYSE: OUST), a leading provider of high-resolution digital lidar, and Velodyne (NASDAQ: VLDR, VLDRW), a leading global player in lidar sensors and solutions, announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to merge in an all-stock transaction. The proposed merger is expected to drive significant value creation and result in a strong financial position through robust product offerings, increased operational efficiencies, ​​and a complementary customer base in fast-growing end-markets.

Drones and similar small unmanned aerial vehicles (sUAVs) have seen a massive surge in popularity over the past few years due to their innovative applications, such as crop monitoring, search and rescue operations, and coast profiling. The potential of sUAVs in atmospheric science and meteorology has not gone unnoticed either as drones offer an efficient way to place various kinds of sensors up above in the lower atmosphere.

Military tactical teams' ability to quickly produce accurate maps of areas targeted for military operations can mean the difference between mission success or failure. Meeting this need, Reveal Technology has teamed with Teal Drones – a division of Red Cat Holdings (NASDAQ: RCAT) – to enhance Reveal's "Farsight" mapping software by automatically combining imagery from multiple unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to produce high-fidelity 3D maps. By dramatically increasing the speed of collection, users receive Farsight maps and analytics faster than ever. The groundbreaking technology was recently successfully demonstrated to U.S. Army Special Operations Command near Fort Bragg.

Vigilant Aerospace announced on Tuesday that it has provided a demonstration FlightHorizon COMMANDER airspace management system to the US Air Force in support of the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2022 exercise, currently going on in Hawaii and near Southern California.

"The logistics industry is the leader of the pack when it comes to using drones."
That's according to a recent article in the American Journal of Transportation. The article describes how uncrewed technology has been embraced by companies involved in warehousing, port management, transportation, and other logistics-focused operations.

AgEagle Aerial Systems Inc. (NYSE American: UAVS) ("AgEagle" or the "Company"), an industry-leading provider of full-stack drone, sensor and software solutions for commercial and government/defense use, today reported that steps taken to increase supply due to significant demand for its new MicaSense Altum-PT and RedEdge-P sensors, and its legacy RedEdge-MX sensors, will enable the Company to ship  more than $2 million in backlogged purchase orders in the third quarter, ending September 30, 2022. In addition, AgEagle expects to meet ongoing global market demand for its multispectral sensors moving forward, notwithstanding any further unforeseen delays. 

The Virginia Unmanned Systems Center at VIPC, and a coalition of public and private sector leaders from DroneUp, ATA, Ecodyne, and the City of Winchester conducted a demonstration "Fly-In" during the 95th annual Apple Blossom Festival. 

The Virginia Unmanned Systems Center at VIPC, and a coalition of public and private sector leaders from DroneUp, ATA, Ecodyne, and the City of Winchester conducted a demonstration "Fly-In" during the 95th annual Apple Blossom Festival.

Pierce Aerospace announced a partnership with Vigilant Aerospace Systems today to integrate Pierce Aerospace's Flight Portal Remote ID technologies into Vigilant's FlightHorizon airspace management and flight safety products.

Pierce Aerospace, of Indianapolis, announced a partnership with Vigilant Aerospace Systems today to integrate Pierce Aerospace's Flight Portal Remote ID technologies into Vigilant's FlightHorizon airspace management and flight safety products.

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.

For years, roofing professionals have been forced to spend hours on hot and dirty surfaces to do initial inspections of large, flat commercial and industrial roofs. The process is time-consuming, expensive—and potentially dangerous.
Using drones, however, can make inspections faster, safer, and more cost-efficient. And, when drones are equipped with thermal imaging cameras, inspections become even quicker, as well as less risky and more accurate.

Using software to handle tasks to assist people is not a new concept – look at our computers, cell phones or electric cars.
Advanced Air Mobility, or AAM, aircraft intend to apply that same idea with new software algorithms and hardware such as sensors and radars. Technology like this could enable vehicles to operate without a pilot, or if a pilot is in the loop, increase the safety. Use cases include helping the vehicle avoid bad weather, other aircraft, and safely take off and land.

Zena Drone has helped revolutionize the burgeoning hemp industry.  In this guest post, Leah Jacobe outlines five ways that intelligent drones in the agriculture sector are helping growers to meet the demands of global food production.

HD Air Studio designed and manufactured a custom gimbal equipped with three different sensors as part of an aerial solution designed to aid marine search and rescue operations

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.

Intelesence, a leading provider of technical services encompassing UAS (unmanned aerial systems), drone and aerospace design and systems engineering, has partnered with Unmanned Systems Technology ("UST") to demonstrate their expertise in this field. The 'Silver' profile highlights the company's Bluetooth Temperature and Humidity Sensor, developed in conjunction with SMRC (Systems Research and Manufacturing Corporation), which allows users to easily turn a drone into an aerial weather monitoring station.

While the sun beat down on the New Mexico desert, inside, a dense fog hung in the air. In a special facility outside Albuquerque, a team of NASA researchers was working with the kind of fog that's so thick you can't see three feet in front of you.
The ability to perceive things through the fog was the reason for their visit – but not our human ability. Rather, the engineers were testing sensors likely to be used on future air vehicles such as urban air taxis. There won't be a human pilot on board these small aircraft, and they'll need new ways of seeing and sensing the environment to help them take off, fly, and land safely.

Two companies, TruWeather Solutions and Drone Industry Systems Corporation (DISC), have teamed up to provide a holistic infrastructure solution for the unmanned aircraft system (UAS) and advanced air mobility (AAM) industry.

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.

This column aims to collect the most relevant recent discoveries and papers — particularly in but not limited to artificial intelligence — and explain why they matter, including a startup that's using UAV drones for mapping forests.

The Federal Aviation Administration is looking for four airports to help it test drone detection systems, as well as a contractor to facilitate those tests and other capabilities.

Researchers at University of Illinois at Chicago, through a partnership with the U.S. Army, are developing a new power supply system that will allow drones to recharge wirelessly from vehicles on the ground.

General Atomics' aeronautical systems business has demonstrated a small unmanned aircraft system during a captive carry test with an MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft.

Skyward, a Verizon company, has been awarded a temporary waiver from the FAA that allows its pilots to fly the Percepto Sparrow drone from their homes to inspect critical communications infrastructure near the Big Hollow wildfire in Washington.

The evolution of LiDAR, is similar to other technologies that often surprise the layman: as early as 2018, some observers predicted improved LIDAR performance at lower prices that sounded like the stuff of science fiction, but in early 2020, leading player Velodyne put a LiDAR sensor on the market for $100.

North Dakota and the Northern Plains UAs test Site are working together to build out their commercial drone infrastructure by creating a statewide BVLOS network.

Can retail orders be delivered via drone? A recent test in Springfield was a step toward answering that question for a New Jersey communications company that is now looking to establish a presence in Ohio. 

When you hear about people looking at "the big picture" before making a decision, it might mean looking at 21,200 pictures in Dyer, Indiana. That's how many images are compiled using unmanned aerial vehicle technology to give town officials a single clear picture of the lay of the land.

At the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory, researchers developed a novel sensor and software application to detect and avoid energized power lines in the vicinity of unmanned aerial system, or UAS.

Censys Technologies, a Daytona Beach company mostly of young Embry-Riddle graduates, announced that it has closed its most recent round of Series Seed funding which will provide growth capital to serve more enterprise customers, UAS service providers and government organizations with innovations in remote sensing solutions.

Whether it's for examining high-voltage power lines and natural gas pipelines, or seeding and spraying crops in a field, drones are getting a lot of attention, in Iowa and elsewhere.

Iris Automation recently announced it has been selected as the exclusive airborne detect-and-avoid provider to Avidrone Aerospace, a leading OEM of long-range, cargo delivery and sensor payload aircraft and autopilot systems.

 Kansas State University Polytechnic Campus's Applied Aviation Research Center has received a new waiver from the FAA that permits K-State Polytechnic to fly unmanned aircraft beyond visual line of sight in all Class G airspace nationwide

PrecisionHawk has been awarded two patents for technologies it has developed for UAS traffic management (UTM).

PrecisionHawk trumpeted it's patented unmanned air traffic management syttem. In other sectors this might be news akin to former Vice President Al Gore's assertion that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet." But in the drone industry, it's par for the course.

SenseFly's CEO Gilles Labossière shares his views on the latest trends in the market, new technical developments and further changes and challenges geospatial professionals have to take into account now that UAVs have become a standard tool for mapping and surveying.

A new wide-area motion imagery sensor could make the R1-21A Blackjack an even more powerful tool for the war fighter, allowing the small UAV to simultaneously monitor 5 square miles.

In a recent webinar hosted by AUVSI NC, a panel of experts gave their best advice to state agencies preparing to use UAV for hurricane response.

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.

The prototype of Airbus Helicopters' VSR700 unmanned aerial system (UAS) has performed its first free flight. The VSR700 performed a ten minute flight at a drone test center near Aix-en-Provence in the south of France.

Models based on images from unmanned aerial vehicles and satellites can help farmers to monitor the health of individual trees.

Drone consumers include both avid and casual fans whose understanding of their new toy varies widely. With this varied knowledge, coupled with evolving laws and technology and increasing demand, the challenges surrounding Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) are likely to increase. Transportation Resource Board's new Standing Committee on New Users of Shared Airspace will offer guidance on the topic, helping research stay ahead of the curve.