With sensors covering his head, University of Texas at San Antonio graduate student Mauricio Merino concentrates hard as a camo-colored drone hovers with a soft hum in the middle of a campus research lab. For now, fellow graduate student Prasanna Kolar stands nearby to operate the unmanned aerial vehicle through a cell phone app — gently commanding it left and right. But the goal is to create a process for a human to control the movements of groups of drones with only a thought, said Daniel Pack, chairman of UTSA’s electrical and computer engineering department.
Chinese Reconnaissance and Strike UAS Test Flight
China’s reconnaissance and strike UAS Rainbow NO.4 has conducted a test flight and completed simulation target practice, marking a major step forward for China’s unmanned technology. “The test flight was very successful today. During acceleration and deceleration, the aircraft kept taxiing on a central line on the runway. It’s well positioned to carry out the subsequent missions,” Li Pingkun, head of Rainbow No.4 Project, said.
RTCA Standards Committee Grapples with UAS Collision Avoidance Rules
Techniques to avoid aircraft collisions took center stage as aviation experts met in Washington this week to continue hammering out the standards essential to integrating unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the nation’s skies. The standards are being developed by RTCA Special Committee 228 (SC-228), one of the family of committees operating through RTCA, Inc., which develops consensus standard for aviation, which are then adopted and put into real-world practice by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
NASA Working on UAS Air Traffic Control System
Researchers at NASA are working on ways to manage that menagerie of low-flying aircraft. At NASA’s Moffett Field, about four miles from Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., the agency has been developing a UAS traffic management programme that would in effect be a separate air traffic control system for things that fly low to the ground — around 400 to 500 feet for most drones. Continue reading
DJI Phantom Films Apple’s New Cupertino Campus
This video was recently posted to YouTube, showing aerial images of Apple’s new “under construction” campus in Cupertino, California. It reveals the scale of the facility, which is truly massive. Continue reading
Ducted Fan Hexpuck – or Flying Saucer ?
The new Hexpuck UAS by Ashima Devices are launched by hand and recovered by hand. You just press the “come back” button on your touch screen pad and it comes back. “It’s not something like you set on the ground and it has little legs on it,” said Larry Lambert, Ashima co-founder and vice president. “It’s like a flying saucer.
Airbus Completes SatCom-controlled High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite Zephyr 7 Test Flight
Airbus Defence and Space has announced that the Zephyr 7 High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) has just completed its most demanding mission to date and thus set a new benchmark in persistent, year-round operations for this class of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). The test consisted of over 11 days of non-stop flight, in winter weather conditions with a new primary payload, including flight controlled through satellite communications – three more benchmarks reached by Zephyr 7.
UAS Give RCMP ‘New Perspective’ on Crime Scenes
Disaster detectives can always use another set of eyes. Manitoba RCMP say they’re better served when they come from up above. So while one mayoral candidate trumpeted the benefits Unmanned Aerial Vehicles would have for Winnipeg police, Manitoba RCMP have been seeing the benefits of the so-called “drones” for the past two years. Continue reading