University of Maryland Professors S.K. Gupta (ME/ISR) and Hugh Bruck (ME) and their students have developed and demonstrated a new robotic bird, "Robo Raven," whose wings flap completely independently of each other, and also can be programmed to perform any desired motion, enabling the bird to
Regulations
The FAA has announced a smartphone application that aims to make it clear to Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) enthusiasts where it’s legal to fly in the National Airspace System (NAS). The B4UFLY app, announced at the 2015 Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Conference in Atlanta, Ga. will
Business
Chinese drone maker SZ DJI Technology Co. secured a this week that values the company at roughly $8 billion, according to people familiar with the situation, propelling the firm into an exclusive club of startups and signalling Silicon Valley’s high hopes for the commercial promise of flying robots. Venture-
Erle Robotics, a Spanish company, which has been at the forefront of using Linux in devices and had introduced the Erle-Copter powered by Ubuntu Snappy Core back in February 2015, has launched the world’s first Ubuntu powered Drone. The Erle-Copter Drone is powered by Snappy Ubuntu Core
Inspections
SkyDrones Tecnologia Avionica in Brazil was able to inspect and estimate the cost of repairing a 104-year-old chimney by reconstructing it using UAV-acquired images and image processing software.
Commercial
A fully autonomous, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based system for locating GPS jammers, currently under development, seeks to localize a jammer to within 30 meters in less than 15 minutes in an area comparable to that of an airport.Ultimately, the design team targets the ability to locate multiple, simultaneous
Business
LiquidPiston, Inc., a developer of advanced combustion engine technology, has announced that the company has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to advance the development of its highly efficient, power-dense rotary internal combustion engine for portable and small-engine applications. Under
Video
The New Zealand Warbirds Assn 'Roaring Forties' Harvard (aka Texan) formation team put on a noisy display at Ardmore Airport, Auckland, New Zealand. Source: YouTube
Regulations
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced a partnership with industry to explore the next steps in unmanned aircraft operations beyond the type of operations the agency proposed in the draft small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) rule it published in February. “Government has some
Military
The U.S. Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk high altitude, long endurance autonomous unmanned aircraft system (UAS) successfully completed Milestone C approval from the Defense Acquisition Executive.For the Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC)-built Global Hawk program, Milestone C is a key incremental step in the Department of
Business
UAV Vision has been selected by Airbus Defence and Space to supply an ISR payload for the Zephyr 8 part of the High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) programme. The HAPS programme conducted by Airbus Defence and Space required an ISR payload that is capable of operating in extreme environmental conditions
Commercial
Following the devastation of Cyclone Pam, the Government of the South Pacific island of Vanuatu and the World Bank contacted Australian operator Heliwest, who deployed Lockheed Martin's Indago small unmanned aerial system (UAS) to conduct a rapid damage assessment. The Indago collected imagery of the damage over a