Robotics Research Campus
Posts tagged UAV
April 22, 2014 “UAV news”
11 years
Google acquires Titan Aerospace for $60 million; Facebook acquires Ascenta for $20 million; Groupe Gorgé, through ECA, acquires Infotron for $10 million and the Navy is building a new UAV center. Here’s a wrap-up of these and other UAV stories in the news:
April 15, 2014 “Repurposed Military Drones Create Mobile Wireless Hotspots”
11 years
The military is pouring a huge amount of resources into unmanned systems like UAVs. Every year, drones get fancier and more capable, which means that there’s an increasing number of slightly less fancy and slightly less capable drones gathering dust and feeling lonely in a hangar somewhere. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has an idea of what these drones might be good for: not delivering weapons, not surveillance, but instead providing mobile high-speed network connectivity for deployed troops.
April 11, 2014 “Why Are Search-and-Rescue Drones Grounded?”
11 years
Federal Aviation Administration: model airplanes, no matter how small, cannot be flown for commercial purposes until the agency puts regulations in place to accommodate them.
Mar 19, 2014 “DARPA’s Newest X-Plane Concepts Are All Robots”
11 years
DARPA announced the four companies that’ll be competing to develop a new experimental aircraft that combines the efficiency of an airplane with the versatility of a helicopter. It’ll be something like a V-22 Osprey, except that DARPA is hoping for “radical improvements in vertical and cruise flight capabilities.”. And the thing that every proposal has in common? They’re all robots.
Jan 1, 2014 “FAA selected Six Drone Testing Sites”
11 years
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has selected six UAS test site operators that will allow the agency to develop research findings and operational experiences to help ensure the safe integration of UAS into the nation’s airspace as they transition in what they refer to as a system featuring NextGen technologies and procedures. Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas and Virginia are the states that will host these research sites. On these locations, researchers will develop and test new drone technologies to fly safely the same skies shared by commercial planes.
Oct 14, 2013 “Is drone delivery really a robot startup?”
11 years
Australian startup Zookal is making news today with their claims to be the world’s first drone delivery company. Zookal is a textbook rental startup that also provides a digital note platform and internships for international students. Zookal are using drones developed by the University of Sydney engineering students and technically Flirtey is the actual drone startup.
Sept 27, 2013 “3D Robotics gets $30 million to mainstream aerial robotics”
11 years
3D Robotics, the open source unmanned aerial vehicle company headed by Chris Anderson, just got a $30 million infusion of venture funding to enable the company to “mainstream aerial robotics and surveying” by making advanced UAV technology affordable and easy to use.
July 27, 2013 “Two small drones approved by FAA for civilian use in the US”
11 years
Two small drones, Insitu‘s Scan Eagle X200 and AeroVironment‘s PUMA, have become the first federally certified unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for civilian use in the US. One will operate off the Alaska coast to survey ice floats and wildlife; the other will conduct commercial environmental monitoring in the Arctic Circle, assist emergency response teams in oil spill monitoring and conduct wildlife observations.
Both drones have fixed wings, weigh less than 55 pounds each, and have wingspans of less than 10 feet.
July 17, 2013 “Multi-UAV systems”
11 years
Autonomously flying robots — also called small-scale unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — are more and more exploited in civil and commercial applications for monitoring, surveillance, and disaster response. For some applications, it is beneficial if a team of coordinated UAVs rather than a single UAV is employed.
June 18, 2013 “Food delivery drones. But is it a business?”
11 years
Food drone delivery ideas are taking off all over the place. But is it a business or just an advertizing stunt?
