Category Archives: VTOL

Skycatch Raises $3M from Investors Including Google for UAS for Energy Industry

SkycatchThe egg white UAS lifted off from its ground station at a hospital construction site here, hovered for an instant, then zoomed off, sounding like a five-pound bee as it buzzed around the cranes towering over the six-acre project. Capable of carrying a high-resolution camera and other sensors, the quadcopter, a helicopter with four rotors that resembles a spaceship from a 1950s science fiction movie, was flying in a demonstration of its ability to serve a potentially lucrative new market for UAS: the energy industry. Continue reading →

UAS Mapping Trees in Finland

Sharper ShapeMapping the trees in Finland’s forests sounds like a Herculean task – there are 30 billion of them, making it Europe’s most densely wooded nation. But for one start-up that’s just the warm-up act to its plan to use laser-equipped drones to shake up industry at large. From package deliveries to nuclear power plant examinations, the Helsinki-based Sharper Shape can see limitless possibilities for its system. Continue reading →

Saint John Paul II Relic Procession in Washington Filmed by QuadCopter

The procession had an ancient vibe: Dozens of priests in white robes, leading hundreds more Catholics in a solemn procession through Northeast Washington. People chanted and sang prayers from the 3rd century, asking saints through Christianity’s history for help. The Archdiocese of Washington debuted its new, hubcap-sized flying device on Mother’s Day, using it to videotape crowds participating in a procession marking the canonizations of popes John Paul II and John the 23rd (now called St. John Paul II and St. John the 23rd).  Continue reading →

Quadrotor uses Google’s Project Tango for Autonomous Flight

Early this year, Google unveiled its Project Tango smartphone, a mobile device equipped with a depth sensor, a motion tracking camera, and two vision processors that let the phone track its position in space and create 3D maps in real time. The device is particularly useful for robots, which have to navigate and locate themselves in the world. Continue reading →

Mumbai Police Investigate Pizza Delivery by QuadCopter

Police have launched a probe into the usage of a quadcopter by a Lower Parel-based outlet of a pizza chain in Mumbai, which has now become an internet sensation.  The eatery created its own slice of history on May 11 when it successfully test-delivered a 13-inch Margherita from its Lower Parel outlet to a highrise in Worli, 1.5-km away, in 10 minutes using a remote-controlled, GPS-enabled quadcopter. Continue reading →