Propulsion
The European Space Agency (ESA) is backing a German startup working to develop the world's first vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) personal flight jet aircraft for consumers. Lilium Aviation, which was founded by four engineers and doctoral students from the Technical University of Munich, is part of
Technology
Yasamin Mostofi, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCSB, has designed a new technology that uses simple WiFi signals to allow unmanned vehicles to essentially “see” through walls. If you’ve ever tried to connect to the internet when there’s distance and walls between
Technology
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency yesterday hosted DARPA Demo Day 2016 at the Pentagon, giving the Defense Department community an up-close look at the agency’s portfolio of innovative technologies and military systems. DARPA program managers and academic and private-sector project leaders demonstrated ongoing work on more
Technology
Drones may soon have the capability to save thousands of lives each year by detecting terrorists’ improvised explosive devices and active land mines from long-ago wars thanks to innovative technology developed at UW-Madison. The proven detection technology that also can detect chemical and nuclear weapons and drugs was
Technology
New Zealand startup Dotterel Technologies has won an innovation award for its noise-reducing drone technology at the 2016 NAB Show, the world’s largest annual convention to launch innovative products to key influencers in media, entertainment and technology. Auckland-based Dotterel was set up only nine months ago by
Technology
In an era of declining budgets and adversaries’ evolving capabilities, quick, affordable and routine access to space is increasingly critical for both national and economic security. Current satellite launch systems, however, require scheduling years in advance for an extremely limited inventory of available slots. Moreover, launches often cost hundreds of
Technology
Amazon has filed a patent to build drone propellers that can emit warning noises and certain phrases. The eCommerce giant is interested in using drones to deliver parcels to people's homes and offices, cutting out delivery companies like FedEx and DHL. Spotted by The Register recently, the patent
Military
The U.S. Army’s Joint Precision Airdrop System (JPADS) has developed a new capability with a navigation alternative to GPS. In recent tests, JPADS were dropped from planes, and immediately determined their location using optical sensors to compare local terrain with commercial satellite imagery. The new system demonstrated navigation
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Dreams of antimatter space propulsion are closer to reality than most rocket scientists could ever imagine, says former Fermilab physicist Gerald Jackson. In fact, if money were no object, he says an antimatter-driven spacecraft prototype could be tested within a decade. To that end, next month, Jackson and his
Electronic Sub-Systems
MIT Media Labs has made sensor deployment as easy as unraveling a strip of tape from your toolkit. They’ve developed SensorTape, an unroll-able, deployable network of interconnected IMU and proximity sensors packaged in a familiar form factor of a roll of masking tape. Possibly the most interesting technical
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The return of supersonic passenger air travel is one step closer to reality with NASA's award of a contract for the preliminary design of a “low boom” flight demonstration aircraft. This is the first in a series of ‘X-planes’ in NASA's New Aviation Horizons initiative,
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VertiGo is a wall-climbing robot that is capable of transitioning from the ground to the wall, created in collaboration between Disney Research Zurich and ETH. The robot has two tiltable propellers that provide thrust onto the wall, and four wheels. One pair of wheels is steerable, and each propeller