The Federal Aviation Administration has granted Exemption 333 status to a Penguin B unmanned aerial vehicle, produced by UAV Factory and powered by a gasoline engine. The vast majority of aircraft being granted Section 333 exemptions have been electric powered.
BoxBotix 3D-Printable Robotics System
Rocketship Systems Inc., a manufacturer of components for the unmanned aerial systems market, has announced the development of BoxBotix, a new 3D printable robotics system that supports multiple configurations, including copter, plane and rover. BoxBotix is an open source, modular framework that is designed to be easy to hack, make, use and sustain. Continue reading
James Cameron Backed Innovation Competition Winner
A drone which can withstand bad weather on film sets has won an emerging technology competition. Movie mogul James Cameron threw his support behind C-Prize, a Callaghan Innovation-led competition aimed at developing the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) sector and boost New Zealand’s position as world-leader in the development of the cutting-edge technology. Continue reading
FAA Grants Terrafugia sUAS Exemption for Sub-Scale Flight Testing
On 1 December the FAA granted Terrafugia an exemption to operate small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) in the TF-X configuration for research and development (R&D) purposes. Continue reading
EDA Project to Reduce Vulnerability of Lightweight UAV Structures
The BaToLUS project, Battle Damage Tolerance for Lightweight Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Structures, brought about a successful development of new rapid prototype modelling capabilities. Continue reading
Increasing Number of Anti UAV Defence Weapons
The number of anti-UAV weapons showing up indicates that the countries with larger defence budgets see a need for this sort of thing and are willing to pay for a solution. Continue reading
Russian UAV Films US UAV Over Syria
In the sky of Syria, the number of coalition UAVs has increased by 3 times. This unusual footage taken by a Russian UAV shows an American UAV in flight over Syria. Continue reading
Second Flight of Kratos Unmanned Tactical Aerial Platform
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. announced that it has successfully performed the second flight of its Unmanned Tactical Aerial Platform (UTAP-22) on November 23, 2015, on the Navy test range at China Lake, CA. This was the second flight in the currently planned three-flight series, and consisted of collaborative airborne operations with a manned fighter aircraft, an AV-8B Harrier; command and control through the tactical data link; execution of semi-autonomous tasks; execution of autonomous flight in formation with the AV-8B; transfer of UTAP-22 control between non-line-of-sight (over the horizon) operators in the tactical network; and transfer of control (handoff) from the tactical network to an independent dedicated control link. Continue reading