Drone News for Week of
Drone NewsBytes Your Unfiltered Drone News Source
| Beaverton-based startup wins grant for energy drone - The company, eWind Solutions just received $600,000 in federal grant money to develop an “energy harvesting tethered drone.” The principle is similar to that of a kite. A drone connected to a tether collects energy in the air where the wind speeds are higher. The goal is to generate 45,000 kilowatts per year, which is enough to power four or five homes per drone. |
| NYPD to deploy drone fleet, stoking fears of Big Brother - The nation's largest police department on Tuesday announced that it will soon deploy a newly acquired fleet of 14 drones to assist with emergencies. And New York police officials went out of their way to assure civil libertarians that the unmanned aerial vehicles would not be used to peer into the lives of everyday New Yorkers. |
| Minnesota native helped fly unique drone over California wildfires - Called the Scan Eagle, the drone has a 10-and-a-half foot wingspan, it weighs up to 50 pounds when it starts and has to be catapulted into the air..The drone spent six days flying over the containment line of the camp fire, using infrared cameras to find hot spots.. |
| Antennas for Origami Disposable Drones - A group of authors aims to investigate the potential antenna scenarios for disposable drones which may one day be fully fabricated using inkjet printing technology – simulated using CST Microwave Studio and comparing them with experimental results. |
| Sandia Labs trains AI to spot drones in time and space - Sandia Labs, together with the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, is working on a novel drone-detection technique. Sandia’s method is video-based. Called “temporal frequency analysis,” it analyzes pixel fluctuations in recorded footage of a drone, and then applies machine learning to that footage to train the algorithm to recognize all drones like it in the future, and then anticipate their movements. |
| This Surfing Contest Used a Helicopter to Knock a Drone Out of the Sky - We’ve seen various methods of dealing with drones, including bigger drones with nets, special shotgun shells, bazookas, futuristic jammer guns, and even specially-trained eagles. A surfing event in Hawaii took a different approach: as seen in the video above, it knocked a drone out of the air using a helicopter. |
| Alphabet's Wing expands to Europe with drone delivery service in Finland next year - 9to5Google - Back in July, Wing graduated from X to become its own Alphabet company. The drone delivery division is expanding to Europe with a trial in Finland this spring. |
| Israeli drone could revolutionize US farm production - Elbit Systems, the listed Israeli defense group, is set to revolutionize the US agriculture industry through its Fargo, North Dakota, pilot program that uses a military-grade unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for crop surveillance. |
| Swiss post office expands hospital drone delivery system - The Swiss Post is expanding its drone delivery system, transporting laboratory samples between two hospitals in Zurich. |
| How emergency responders are using drones to save lives - Jack Karsten and Darrell West review how first responders are using drones for faster and more effective emergency management. |
| Jeff Bezos was wrong when he predicted Amazon will be making drone deliveries by 2018 - Back in 2013, Jeff Bezos predicted that Amazon’s drone delivery service would have lift off in five years’ time. Fast forward to the end of 2018, and the drones are yet to materialise. |
| Ameren successfully completes industry-leading 60-mile drone flight over transmission lines - Ameren, Black & Veatch, Collins Aerospace team passes key milestone for maturing UAS inspection technology |
| Jailed Hacker Charged in Drone Smuggling Ring - A San Francisco hacker already serving a record-setting prison sentence has been charged with orchestrating a new scheme to drop contraband into a Louisiana prison yard using a remotely piloted drone, the Daily Beast reported Friday. |
| National Grid turns to AI to process drone data - The energy firm uses using machine learning to sift through drone image data to maintain thousands of miles of wires and pylons |
| Tens of thousands gather for inauguration of Mexico's new leader – drone footage - Tens of thousands of Mexicans gathered in the capital's iconic Zocalo square to celebrate the inauguration of new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. |
| Drone Video: Tornado Damage at Lake Tenkiller - Drone video taken from our 40/29 photographers show the extensive damage at Snake Creek Marina. |
| The Nine-Piece Flex-Plane Drone Flaps Its Wings Like a Bird - The Flex-Plane essentially combines nine fixed-wing UAVs into one cohesive unit that allows its components to bend like a bird |
| Drone used in Hill County to catch man who ran from a traffic stop, authorities say - DPS troopers and Hill County Sheriff's Office deputies searched for John Farrow for more than an hour before he was finally caught with the help of a drone that spotted him from above, according to the sheriff's office. |
| Openreach Airborne Drone Reconnects Rural Hamlet After Landslide UPDATE - A serious landslide, which cut-off the rural hamlet of Kinloch Hourn in the West Highlands (Scotland) from broadband and phone services, has been reconnected after Openreach (BT) used one of their airborne drones to fly a new cable over the safety exclusion zone, around the landslide, and to the base of the Quoich Dam. |
| Misleading 'no drone zone' signs should be removed ASAP - On Wednesday, Nov. 28, we published our investigative piece into the supposed “no drone zone” that Sedona Oak Creek Airport Authority officials claim exists for 5 miles around the Sedona Airport. In a nutshell, no such ban on drones exists. Drones are prohibited from taking off, landing or crashing in the Red Rock Secret Mountain and Munds Mountain wilderness areas, and from interfering in the flight operations of the airport, but no federal, state nor local law prohibits drones from legally flying on most Sedona area trails. |
| Singapore pushes to embrace drone technology - Fueled by a drive to embrace innovation, Singapore announced plans to roll out drones for a range of tasks, including deliveries, security and inspections,. |
| Why It's So Incredibly Hard to Attach a Parachute to a Drone - Drones are not immune to the whole “What goes up must come down” thing, and their descent is not always planned. If a drone falls out of the sky, the plummeting load can weigh up to a dozen pounds and be accompanied by four spinning rotors ready to rip into, or lop off, anything that gets in their way. Amber McDonald, CEO and one of the founders of the company Indemnis, first saw this problem when working in the film industry, so she, and her team, set out to fix it. |
| Computer graphics researchers make drone navigation easier - Drone operators struggling to fly the multi-propeller device and take pictures simultaneously could soon have a much simpler method to steering flight. Bedrich Benes, a professor of computer graphics technology, and doctoral student Hao Kang collaborated with corporate researchers to develop a touch-screen method to navigate and take pictures with drones. |
Australia Drone News
| Hunt after drone flies near plane at Perth Airport - Australia’s aviation watchdog and the Australian Federal Police are hunting the operator of a drone that flew over Perth Airport yesterday. The drone was seen at 7.38am by a pilot in a plane taking off and then by an airport worker near the runways to the Qantas terminal. In the departing plane, the pilot was alerted by the reflection of the sun off the white drone. He reported it to air traffic control after take-off. |
| Zain Drone partners with worldwide leader DroneShield - Zain Group, a leading Middle Eastern mobile and data services operator headquartered in Kuwait has entered into a Teaming Agreement with DroneShield Ltd (ASX:DRO) (“DroneShield”), a worldwide leader in counterdrone solutions, which will see the companies working together on meeting Zain’s customers’ requirements for counterdrone security solutions in the region. |
| Airbus moves Zephyr flight testing to Australia - Airbus Defence has officially opened the operating base for its Zephyr drone in Wyndham, Western Australia |
