Egypt is to acquire and field the AeroVironment (AV) RQ-20B Puma II AE tactical unmanned aircraft system (UAS), the US Department of Defense (DoD) disclosed on 16 March. Continue reading
Category Archives: News
FAA Forecasts 450,000 US Commercial Drones by 2022
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has just published report ‘FAA Aerospace Forecast Fiscal Years (FY) 2018-2038’ in which it projects that the country’s commercial, small, non-model fleet of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or drones is set to grow from 110,604 in 2017 to 451,800 in 2022. Continue reading
High-Speed Mapping for High-Speed Rail
Aerial mapping of the rail corridor
The California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) is planning the first dedicated high-speed rail system in the U.S. When completed, it will enable passengers to travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in under three hours, at speeds greater than 200 mph. Continue reading
Russia is Testing a Powerful New Unmanned Helicopter
Russia has started tests of a new unmanned helicopter that can perform both reconnaissance and combat functions for use by the Russian army in Syria and other hot zones, according to Rostec, one of Russia’s largest state and defense corporations (and the designer of the new model). Continue reading
AI Inserted into US Army Drones
The US Army has eliminated the need to do lengthy pre-flight checks for its unmanned aerial vehicles by applying artificial intelligence algorithms on top of existing software programs. Continue reading
Message from Symposium – FAA is ‘Open for Business’
The FAA’s Earl Lawrence, X’s James Burgess and Amazon’s Gur Kimchi discuss drone package delivery
“The message of this whole conference is, the FAA is open for business,” said Derek Kan, undersecretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation, summing up the Federal Aviation Administration’s stance at the third annual FAA UAS Symposium, cosponsored by AUVSI. Continue reading
Walmart Files Patent for Drone Bees
Walmart earlier this month applied for a patent for “drone pollinators” that would fill in for the declining population of bees that now help fertilize the crops needed to produce the food sold by Walmart and other grocers. Continue reading
Cleaning Wind Turbine Blades by Drone
Hundreds of feet above a snow-covered field, a boxy black device covered in propellers hovers next to the enormous outstretched blade of a wind turbine. From a corner of the machine, a nozzle sprays a liquid across the surface of the blade in a rapid smooth zigzag motion like a rogue car wash in the sky. Continue reading