Category Archives: Research

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

DARPA’s System of Systems Integrates UAS


DARPA’s System of Systems (SoS) Integration Technology and Experimentation (SoSITE) program aims to develop and demonstrate concepts for maintaining air superiority through novel SoS architectures—combinations of aircraft, weapons, sensors and mission systems—that distribute air warfare capabilities across a large number of interoperable manned and unmanned platforms. The vision is to integrate new technologies and airborne systems with existing systems faster and at lower cost than near-peer adversaries can counter them. Continue reading

Balloon-Assisted UAV Brings Back Stratospheric Aerosol Samples from Altitude of 22 km in Antarctica

PhoenixA balloon-assisted UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) named “Phoenix-S1,” developed by Kyushu University and Fukuoka University, Japan, has successfully brought back stratospheric aerosol samples from the altitude of 22 km and observed aerosol density at the altitude of 23 km in Antarctica on January 24, 2015.

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