Category Archives: Research

DARPA Hackfest to Explore Cyber-Physical Intersection of SDR and Drone Technology

The increased use of wireless and internet-enabled devices – from computers to home appliances – and the data they generate are creating opportunities and challenges for the defense and commercial sectors. To help explore and better understand the complex relationship created by the intersection of physical and cyber technology within the ever more congested electromagnetic spectrum, DARPA program manager Tom Rondeau embarked on a year-long effort to build an engaged community of engineers and scientists operating within relevant technical areas. Continue reading →

GA-ASI Deal to Advance RPAS in Korean Civil Airspace

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA‑ASI) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), one of the world’s leading universities specializing in science and technology. Continue reading →

SRC, Inc. Wins Multiple Awards for C-UAS Technology

SRC has been awarded a $12.7M contract to provide the Air Force with Counter-UAS systems to meet an urgent requirement to detect and defeat drones. SRC also received a $10M follow-on order from the Army for electronic warfare enhancements, as well as increased engineering and field service support to previously delivered C-UAS systems. Continue reading →

Autonomous Power Line Detection and Avoidance Capability Patent for UAS

Electrical power lines pose a serious crash hazard to helicopters and other air-based vehicles, especially small aerial vehicles, such as unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). This is because power lines are so widespread, hard to see, and strung at roughly the same height above the ground at which these aircraft fly. Continue reading →

First Autonomous Flight for Drone with Event Camera

A few years ago, Davide Scaramuzza’s lab at the University of Zurich introduced us to the usefulness of a kind of dynamic vision sensor called an event camera. Event cameras are almost entirely unlike a normal sort of camera, but they’re ideal for small and fast moving robots when you care more about not running into things than you do about knowing exactly what those things are. Continue reading →

SpiderMAV Drone Shoots Webs for Perching and Stabilization

At IROS last week, researchers from Imperial College London’s Aerial Robotics Laboratory, led by Mirko Kovac, presented SpiderMAV, a drone equipped with Spider-Man-style web shooters to help it create stable perches wherever it needs to. Continue reading →

Embry-Riddle sUAS Study Effects of Wind Turbines on Farmland

Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University used a small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to study the effects of wind turbines on farmland beneath them and found that they can impact soil, crops and livestock. Continue reading →

Small Consumer Drones Unlikely to Cause Head Injury

Researchers at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, the site of an FAA-sanctioned drone testing facility, concluded that the risks of a catastrophic head injury were less than 5 percent in an impact with a 2.6-pound unmanned vehicle, according to results published in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering. Continue reading →