Drexel University is one of several core research institutions that will be part of the FAA’s recently-announced National Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, led by Mississippi State University, alongside dozens of associate research, commercial and government partners.
Category Archives: Research
Flapping-Wing Robotic Bird
University of Maryland Professors S.K. Gupta (ME/ISR) and Hugh Bruck (ME) and their students have developed and demonstrated a new robotic bird, “Robo Raven,” whose wings flap completely independently of each other, and also can be programmed to perform any desired motion, enabling the bird to perform aerobatic maneuvers. This is the first time a robotic bird with these capabilities has been built and successfully flown. Continue reading
Docking System for Mid-Air Recharging
New Zealand-born Daniel Wilson, a researcher at the University of Sydney’s Australian Centre for Field Robotics, has developed a method to allow UAVs to dock and recharge in mid-air, much like military jets do. He believes his team’s successful UAV docking in November last year was a world first.
UND Study to Automate Wind Turbine Inspections
University of North Dakota’s Technology Accelerator research center is conducting a two-year study to develop unmanned aircraft technology to automate inspections for the wind power industry and others, according to director Kevan Rusk. Continue reading
Green Brain Project – Bee Brain Pilots UAV
The ‘Green Brain Project’ combines computational neuroscience modelling, learning and decision theory, modern parallel computing methods, and robotics with data from state-of-the-art neurobiological experiments on cognition in the honeybee Apis mellifera.
MIT Swarming Quadcopter can Float on Water
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created a drone that can float on water and communicate with other drones via the cloud. Continue reading
Smartphone Controlled Quadcopter
At the University of Pennsylvania’s Vijay Kumar Lab, Dr. Kumar and his students have been developing advanced, autonomous drones that are assembled from off-the-shelf parts. The drone itself is bare bones: a frame, battery, four motors and props, and a motor controller. As for the phone they’re using, it’s not a special prototype or a developer-only device like Google’s Project Tango. It’s an ordinary Samsung Galaxy phone. Continue reading
New Technology Allows Safe UAS Operation BLoS
“Our new technology allows safe operation of drones beyond the operator’s line of sight, which is crucial for commercial use of drones, such as parcel delivery,” says Prof. Davide Scaramuzza, co-inventor and Director of the Robotics and Perception Group at the University of Zurich. Continue reading