Commercial
NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries has successfully tested the integration of two different types of unmanned systems for potential use in research and management of national marine sanctuaries. The tests earlier this month in Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary involved NOAA’s Puma unmanned aircraft system
Military
The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is looking at entering into a co-operative development programme with the US Navy (USN) on the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance high altitude long endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), according to a senior service official. Group Captain Guy Adams, RAAF Director Unmanned
Testing
The BRAINFLIGHT project, the result of the shared belief of four organizations – TEKEVER (Project Coordinator – Portugal), Champalimaud Foundation (Portugal), Eagle Science (Netherlands) and Technische Universität München (Germany) – that aircraft can be directly controlled by the human brain, has accomplished several important results and is paving the way for having mind
Commercial
Zyro Games is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund final prototype rounds and game development for its drone ball. Zyro works with an app to constrain the drone within a field size specified by the user. Users can swing or pass the drone depending on the game. Badminton, Frisbee,
Testing
Newport Beach, California’s XAir Unmanned Aerial Systems, has built a prototype fixed-wing drone that it says harnesses wind power to keep it in the air for hours at a time. Although the 24-ounce aircraft employs a small solar panel to power up its electronics and its onboard battery, its
Testing
Using a fleet of readily available consumer drones, AdNear – a Singapore-based location-marketing firm – is able to determine a cell phone’s location as well as its movement by collecting signal strength and other wireless data from passersby below. With this data in hand, AdNear could then deliver hyper-targeted ads and
Testing
Battelle, a technology research and development organisation, has successfully performed a wind tunnel test on its new in-flight ice protection system for unmanned aerial vehicles, and ultimately other aircraft. Battelle’s HeatCoat technology was integrated with representative wing and engine inlet test articles, and then placed into a leading aircraft
Testing
The TEMPAERIS consortium has demonstrated the capability to integrate a remote controlled aircraft into civilian air traffic. This evaluation was performed around Bordeaux-Merignac airport, between February 2-6 as part of SESAR RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aircraft System) demonstration projects. The TEMPAERIS consortium is led by DSNA, the French ANSP, together with
Electronic Sub-Systems
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. has announced a major technological advancement related to the integration of RPA into international and domestic airspace. GA-ASI successfully flight tested a pre-production Due Regard Radar (DRR), marking the first fully functional air-to-air radar on a RPA that meets the requirements for “Due Regard” operations
Testing
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. has announced the successful first endurance flight of Predator XP, an advanced derivative of the mission-proven MQ-1 Predator RPA that has accumulated over two million flight hours since 1994. The flight launched on February 6 and landed on February 8 during a 40-plus hour flight
Commercial
Swiss company Flyability is travelling home from Dubai $1 million richer after winning the "Drones for Good" international competition, on February 7. Gimball is described as the first "collision-tolerant drone," utilizing a rotating spherical outer cage that means it can be used safely in close proximity
Testing
A quadcopter built by a Nagoya-based company has completed a trial run to see if unmanned aircraft can be used to transport goods from Kagawa Prefecture to an island in the Seto Inland Sea. “In the long run, we would like to use drones to transport emergency medical supplies and