At CES on Sunday, China’s DJI Innovations showed off its forthcoming S1000, an 8-rotor UAS that was built specifically to carry Canon’s 5D Mark II or Mark III. For those not familiar with camera gear, that’s a setup capable of shooting feature films or documentaries. Continue reading
Category Archives: VTOL
Parrot Launches MiniDrone & Parrot Jumping Sumo at CES
Parrot‘s been offering up relatively small updates to its AR.Drone line each year at CES, and while the quadcopter is, without question, one of the most immediately recognizable in the space, we’ve been waiting to see a genuinely fresh take on the product. Continue reading
Automated UAS Battery Changer – Lego Prototype from Valhalla
Danish company, Valhalla Drone Solutions, a group of seven engineers from the University of Southern Denmark in Odense has developed a prototype Lego Mindstorms robot that automatically switches a quadrotor’s battery pack.
SWARM Flight of Small Quadcoptors Interacting with Humans
A video just released by the Aerospace Robotics and Control Laboratory at the University of Illinois shows a group of ten small, highly manoeuvrable commercially available quadrotors made to act as a squadron, using autonomous control/guidance algorithms inspired from the lab’s work in distributed, cooperative control and a Vicon motion capture system.
Russian Helicopters Demonstrates Rotary UAS for Airborne Forces
Russian Helicopters, the holding that produces rotorcraft in Russia, has shown a demonstrator future rotary-wing unmanned aircraft system to the country’s Airborne Forces (VDV), the company announced last week. Continue reading
Dragonfly Pictures Builds Twin-Rotor UAS in Pennsylvania
“The technology is out of Pandora’s box,” said Michael Piasecki, President and Founder of Essington-based Dragonfly Pictures Inc. Working for the military, the Delaware County company has developed several UAS. Continue reading
Madrid Tests UAS for City Surveillance
Madrid City Hall is testing a UAS with plans to watching the city from the air. The aim is for them to be used by the emergency services, and a municipal spokesperson has said they have tested them several times, including in September, during an event organised to celebrate if Madrid was chosen to hold the 2020 Olympic Games. Continue reading
The US Air Force Collaboratory—Mind of a Quadrotor
The goal of The Air Force Collaboratory‘s second project, Mind of a Quadrotor, was to build a system that allows a quadrotor to navigate its surroundings with minimal human intervention. Continue reading