Commercial
As Norway’s polar waters open to development, that country’s lawmakers are becoming increasingly convinced that drones could serve as a potentially life-saving tool in the event of a maritime accident. Members of the Storting, Norway’s national assembly, gathered representatives from the industry last week to discuss
Launchers
The UAE Drones for Good Award, launched by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, during the second Government Summit last February, has received more than 800 local, Arab and international entries. The award, which aims to
Commercial
Mexico has begun testing unmanned aircraft that could help it save the critically endangered vaquita marina, the world's smallest porpoise, which is threatened by illegal fishing in the upper Sea of Cortez. Alejandro del Mazo, an assistant prosecutor with Mexico's environmental protection agency, said Monday he
Commercial
As federal regulators consider opening new radio frequencies to wireless services, Google is already eyeing the frequencies to deliver Internet access from the sky via drones and balloons. In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission Friday, Google said new bands could “be useful for offering broadband access via airborne
Accidents
DJI has issued a firmware update to owners of the brand new Inspire 1, a drone that caught the industry’s attention last year for its filming abilities and futuristic form.Some of the drones’ first users experienced fly aways and crashes, turning what might be an innocuous bug in
Novadem, France has unveiled a new positioning technology for RPAS allowing automatic inspection of structures without GPS coverage. The LPS (Local Positioning System) technology, using its own terrestrial beacons and totally independent of satellite coverage, permits, for the first time, to perform fully automatic inspection with centimeter accuracy of structures.
Poland's Ministry of Defence has launched a tender to acquire 12 sets of middle-range tactical unmanned aerial vehicles and 15 sets of mini-UAVs for the armed forces. The Ministry says it is aiming to significantly boost the military's surveillance capacity. All initial bids are
Military
Russian designers are proceeding with development of an unmanned "sixth-generation" fighter jet, former Air Force chief Pyotr Deinekin said Monday. "The sixth generation of aircraft will most likely be pilotless. Naturally, we are actively working on this, "Deinekin said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
Rapere is a concept for an “intercept drone” designed to hunt down nearby drones, hover overhead and drop a tangle-line into their rotors, forcing them to crash. Its makers, a group of drone-industry veterans, have only released simple diagrams of how the device will work – above – and claim
The French Presidential palace confirmed on Tuesday that an alert was sparked at the Elysée Palace after a drone was seen flying over the building. During the night of Thursday into Friday, a drone was seen flying over the palace for a matter of seconds, prompting alarm among security teams,
Business
The Japan Ministry of Defence has selected two Northrop Grumman Corporation systems to enhance its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. Under a process known as type selection, the Japanese government chose the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft and the RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system to
Business
2d3 Ltd has won a contract from the Netherlands MOD yesterday to upgrade the ScanEagle UAS motion imagery exploitation capability. The contract is for the delivery of two identical exploitation suites for use with the Insitu ScanEagle systems in service with the Dutch Army. The project consists of delivering updated