The Slingsby T67 Firefly, originally produced as the Fournier RF-6, is a two-seat aerobatic training aircraft, built by Slingsby Aviation in Kirkbymoorside, Yorkshire, England. It has been successfully used by the UK armed forces, where the Royal Air Force used 22 Slingsby T67M260s as their basic trainer between 1995 and 2010, with over 100,000 flight hours flown out of RAF Barkston Heath. Continue reading
Federal Bureau of Prisons Wants Anti-UAV Technology
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (Bureau), Office of Security Technology has created a Request for Information (RFI) to seek information related to a solution regarding protection from unmanned air vehicles. The goal of this RFI is to obtain detailed to collect information to identify and assess the landscape of technologies and systems that can assist in the Bureau’s mission by countering, mitigating and/or interdicting the impact and possible nefarious intent of unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Continue reading
MIT Obstacle-Detection System Allows Autonomous Drone Flight at 30 mph
A researcher from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has developed an obstacle-detection system that allows a drone to autonomously dip, dart and dive through a tree-filled field at upwards of 30 miles per hour. Continue reading
Lawsuit Claims Maveric is a Toy
A breach-of-contract squabble has spiralled into broader allegations of misconduct against a drone manufacturer with millions of dollars worth of US military contracts. A drone retailer claims that Prioria Robotics bilked the Army by selling a substandard drone that could be outflown by many hobby drones, which are far cheaper, according to a court motion. Continue reading
Lockheed’s $4.6M Contract to Develop Vector Hawk
Lockheed Martin was awarded a $4.6 million contract from the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO) for the continued development of a maritime canister-launched small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS). Continue reading
Galileo Announces Alpha Property Security Drone
Galileo, a developer of unmanned systems for security applications, has announced Alpha, the company’s first autonomous drone for property security. Alpha uses advanced technology like LIDAR, wireless charging, and an IR camera to give the user unlimited camera angles, quick response times, and a high level of situational awareness. Continue reading
Modular and Scalable OTS Smart Battery Pack Manager
LikeAbird S.L. has announced its V1 product release of LikeAbird QSBMS, their new battery management system for 1 to 120 smart battery packs with outputs in the 11VDC to 16VDC range. Continue reading
Drone World Expo – Exclusive Board Member Interviews – Gretchen West
To find out what inspires their interest in UAS and attracts the Advisory Board Members to support Drone World Expo, we scheduled a series of exclusive interviews. Our eleventh interviewee is Gretchen West, Senior Advisor of Innovation and Technology at Hogan Lovells.
Gretchen has served the unmanned systems industry over a decade and is an industry-leading advocate for commercial robotics. Prior to joining Hogan Lovells, Gretchen was at San Francisco start-up DroneDeploy serving as the company’s Vice President of Business Development and Regulatory Affairs. Previously, for over a decade, Gretchen served as AUVSI’s Executive Vice President, overseeing AUVSI’s global business development initiatives and government relations efforts for the unmanned systems and robotics industry. Continue reading