The spare tire stashed in your car’s trunk for emergencies might soon be joined by a drone.
On Thursday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark’s office published a patent application submitted by Ford Motor Company subsidiary Ford Global Technologies. It seems the American automaker is developing a system that would allow drivers to deploy and control a drone stored in their car’s trunk.
A user manipulating the formation of a swarm of drones using SwarmTouch. Credit: Tsykunov et al.
SwarmTouch: a tactile interaction strategy for human-swarm communication
Researchers at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) in Russia have recently introduced a new strategy to enhance interactions between humans and robotic swarms, called SwarmTouch. This strategy, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, allows a human operator to communicate with a swarm of nano-quadrotor drones and guide their formation, while receiving tactile feedback in the form of vibrations.
“We are working in the field of swarm of drones and my previous research in the field of haptics was very helpful in introducing a new frontier of tactile human-swarm interactions,” Dzmitry Tsetserukou, Professor at Skoltech and head of Intelligent Space Robotics laboratory, told TechXplore. “During our experiments with the swarm, however, we understood that current interfaces are too unfriendly and difficult to operate.”
The Dory underwater drone is presently on KickstarterChasing Innovation
When consumer aerial camera-drones first hit the market, buyers were mostly limited to models costing $1,000 or more. These days, half-decent quadcopters can be had for under a hundred bucks. While not going quite that cheap, Chasing Innovation is now aiming to make underwater drones similarly more affordable, with the Dory.
Up-and-coming unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) manufacturer Skydio unveiled a new drone today. The Skydio 2, as it’s called, is essentially a new-and-improved version of the Skydio R1 — an autonomy-focused camera drone that was released in early 2018. The new version boasts a bundle of improvements, including better battery life, longer range, and dramatically improved auto-follow capabilities
“Skydio 2 combines groundbreaking artificial intelligence with a best-in-class 4K60 HDR camera, 3.5 kilometers of wireless range, and 23 minutes of flight time in a drone that fits anywhere you can carry a 13-inch laptop,” the company said in a statement. “For experienced pilots, Skydio 2 makes every aspect of flying drones more creative, more fun, more useful, and less stressful. But it’s also capable of flying completely by itself with the skills of an expert pilot, opening up the power and magic of aerial capture to new audiences.”
Auto-follow mode has been a standard feature on camera drones for years now, but despite the fact that it’s relatively common, it’s typically more of an afterthought than a flagship feature on most drones. For Skydio, however, auto-follow functionality is the main event — and it shows. The company’s first-generation drone can fly and dodge obstacles better than practically any other drone on the market, and the Skydio 2 builds upon that already stellar foundation.
But don’t expect your next package delivery via drone
UPS announced that it has received government approval to operate a “drone airline.” Don’t expect your next package to arrive directly on your doorstep by a drone, though: UPS says it will first use this certification to build a drone delivery network for hospital campuses around the US. UPS said in July that it was seeking permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate the network, and today, it got just that.
Specifically, UPS’s drone delivery subsidiary, UPS Flight Forward, was granted a Part 135 Standard certification. Though drones might not seem like aircraft that need to be regulated like commercial airplanes do, the federal government evaluates them on similar footing. Drone delivery companies have to be certified by the FAA just like companies that fly planes.
Technology is the single greatest contributor to climate change but it may also soon be used to offset the damage we’ve done to our planet since the Industrial Age began.
In September 2018, a project in Myanmar used drones to fire “seed missiles” into remote areas of the country where trees were not growing. Less than a year later, thousands of those seed missiles have sprouted into 20-inch mangrove saplings that could literally be a case study in how technology can be used to innovate our way out of the climate change crisis.
“We now have a case confirmed of what species we can plant and in what conditions,” Irina Fedorenko, co-founder of Biocarbon Engineering, told Fast Company. “We are now ready to scale up our planting and replicate this success.”
Technology startup is working on producing passenger drones.
EHang may raise as much as $200 million in public offering.
EHang, one of China’s largest drone makers, has made a confidential application for an initial public offering with Nasdaq Inc., according to people with knowledge of the matter.
EHang plans to float 10% to 15% of its shares, with the company’s valuation not yet set due to volatile market conditions, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. EHang may raise as much as $200 million in the IPO, one of the people said.
A single tree burns in southwest New Mexico after a lightning strike. For more than 100 years, the U.S. Forest Service has been posting men and women atop mountains and trees, and in other hard-to-reach places, to wait and watch for smoke.
Can you see it? The fire in the photo above?
A single tree burning doesn’t put up much smoke.
There’s a flash of lightning, sizzling across the sky. Then a pause as bark smolders and flames creep, building heat until poof: a signal in the sky.
Philip Connors, gazing outward from a tower, sees it as a new dent on the crest of a distant ridge. He’s spent thousands of hours contemplating the contours of southwest New Mexico. The fuzzy smudge is out of place.
The all-electric APT 70 can tote up to 70 pounds, cruise at 75 mph, and cover 35 miles with a fully charged battery.
Bell aims to begin beyond-visual-line-of sight tests for the APT 70 next year, on the road to starting commercial service in the early 2020s.
They say things are bigger in Texas, and it seems that goes for drones as well as pickup trucks and cowboy hats. At least, if Fort Worth-based Bell’s new, autonomous cargo carrier is any indicator.
The four-motor, vertical-lift electric UAV is one of the largest commercial cargo drone projects to reach the skies. It stands nearly 6 feet tall and 9 feet wide on the ground (it rests on its tail before transitioning to horizontal flight after liftoff). It weighs 300 pounds and can carry an additional 70 pounds of cargo, slung in an aerodynamic pod between its two wings. That all-important stat gives it the name APT 70, the letters standing for “autonomous pod transport.” It first started flying in December via remote control, and in the past three weeks began fully autonomous flight, Bell announced this week.
Experts believe that with drier, hotter weather becoming the norm, even more wildfires could rage in the future. That’s why scientists are using the latest technology to monitor intentionally ignited fires.
At past midnight on a Thursday night in June, researchers in Utah are still sending excited emails, updating each other on the day’s action. The team has just finished following a huge fire that has ripped through a remote area of the Fishlake National Forest in the south of the state. And they’re still buzzing.
This was no wildfire. It was intentionally set. Early in the afternoon, ignition helicopters were sent in to start the burn. Utah University atmospheric scientist, Adam Kochanski, watched the flames unfold.
“There were two helicopters with so-called heli-torches – kind of like flame-throwers – just suspended beneath,” he recalls. “They were flying back and forth, and on top of that there were some ground crews with handheld torches and they also started fires on the ground.”
The use of battery power for agricultural vehicles and machinery promises to revolutionise the agricultural industry by lowering costs and improving production. From battery powered large tractors to autonomous small electric robots, battery and solar power are changing the face of agriculture.
Agriculture is under pressure to produce more food using a declining availability of additional arable land and water resources. Mechanised farming can improve food production in Africa, but requires energy, an increasingly costly input to the food production process. There is a need to control energy costs, as in any other industry, by the use of more efficient methods and machinery.
Agriculture is going through a revolution, brought about by new technology, moving to what is known as precision farming (PF), which uses satellite imagery, drones, ground based sensors, GSP systems and agri-robots to control the planting, growth and harvesting of crops. The traditional method of crop management involves blanket application of herbicides, pesticides and fertilizer, while PF makes use of automation and artificial intelligence to precisely control the amounts of fertilizer, herbicide and insecticide applied to crops, with resultant increased yield and greatly reduced use of the above. PF also reduces the energy used by agricultural machinery by directing action only where it is needed and focusing activities on specific areas only.
Your Amazon prime packages are one step closer to being delivered by drones.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a certificate to Amazon Prime Air on Wednesday, allowing the company to operate its MK27 unmanned aircraft for package deliveries, the federal agency said in a statement.
On the same day, Amazon (AMZN) announced it will begin delivering packages to customers by drone “within months” at its artificial intelligence, robotics and space conference re:Mars in Las Vegas. Amazon’s certificate is valid for one year and is eligible for renewal, according to the FAA.
