13 things drones are doing besides flying around your yard | TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/gallery/13-things-drones-are-doing-besides-flying-around-your-yard/

Everyone who’s flown around a drone knows that they’re a lot of fun. But they’re being used all over the world for more serious purposes — after all, an autonomous flying vehicle is a great place to start for all kinds of applications, from delivery to archaeology.

15 Comments

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    UK asks for ways to destroy contraband drones heading to prisons
    The MOJ competition is asking for solutions to eradicate contraband delivery drones.
    http://www.zdnet.com/article/uk-asks-you-to-destroy-contraband-drones-heading-to-prisons/

    The UK Ministry of Justice (MOJ) has launched a competition asking for ideas to stop drones from dropping contraband into prisons.

    Drones delivering everything from weapons to drugs and mobile phones are proving to be a serious issue for today’s prison services in the UK.

    Prison employees already have to cope with high numbers of inmates, drug usage, and a lack of both funding and staff — and so adding contraband falling from the sky is potentially more than prison operators can cope.

    The MOJ wants technological solutions to this problem and has earmarked a total of £950,000 for ideas.

    The aim of the competition is to develop “novel detection techniques” to identify contraband in prisons.

    Funding competition SBRI competition: Detecting security threats and contraband in prisons
    https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/66/overview

    Businesses can apply for a share of £950,000. This is to work with the Ministry of Justice on technological solutions to the problems that drones, drugs, mobile phones, and other contraband, pose within a prison environment.

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  2. Tomi Engdahl says:

    12 Views of Drone World Expo
    Trump White House pledges support
    https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332404

    Commercial drones are lining up on the runway with high hopes for air traffic control systems tailored for unmanned vehicles. But a lack of appropriate regulations may keep them from getting off the ground for a while.

    That was the view from the Drone World Expo here. The event gathered proponents that ranged from Airbus, GE and Lockheed Martin to Facebook, Google and a White House science and technology advisor.

    Clashing cultures in aviation, commercial and consumer industries need to collaborate on how to manage a diverse, emerging fleet of vehicles that want to fly in air space between 200 and 500, speakers said.

    A million drone operators have already registered with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, 75,000 for commercial use, a number forecast to grow five-fold in the next five years, said Michael Kratsios, deputy U.S. chief technology officer for the Trump Administration in a brief keynote here. But regulators still need to figure out how to let drones fly at night, over people and beyond a visual line-of-sight, he noted.

    “We want to make the U.S. a leader [in integrated airspace]…It’s a top priority for this White House, and we have some really good things in the pipeline,” Kratsios said without offering any specifics.

    Reply
  3. Tomi Engdahl says:

    App-Controlled Paper Airplanes for the 21st Century
    https://www.eeweb.com/blog/max_maxfield/app-controlled-paper-airplanes-for-the-21st-century

    You start by folding your paper plane. Next, you attach the DART hardware, which is a one-piece unit that includes the rechargeable battery, motor, propeller, and wireless control system. The really cool thing is that you use an app on your smartphone to control your masterpiece and perform all sorts of tricks.

    One aspect of all this I really like is the fact that you aren’t limited to only one type of plane — you can experiment with lots of different formats (this would have kept Jeremy and me busy throughout the summer vacation).

    It’s funny how some crowd-funded projects seem doomed to failure from the start, while others take wings (pun intended). In this case, the folks behind the POWERUP DART seem to be onto something because — at the time of this writing — they’ve already raised $670,000 of their $25,000 goal and there are still 18 days to go (I only wish my own Kickstarter projects had been greeted with this much enthusiasm).

    Now I’m feeling nostalgic. It was 1967 when I was 10-years-old. In those days, telephones were big and black, had rotary dials, weighed in at several pounds, and were hard-wired to the wall (the first brick-sized cell phone was still four years in the future). Meanwhile, paper airplanes were… well, just made out of paper. The most sophisticated upgrade I can recall was adding a small piece of plasticine (silly putty) to the nose of the plane to make it fly better.

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  4. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Plane sustained minor damage after hitting drone near Quebec City: Garneau
    http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/montreal/garneau-airport-drone-quebec-1.4355792

    Skyjet plane was struck as it approached Jean Lesage airport Thursday

    Reply
  5. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Researchers Build a Plug-and-Play System for Gesture Control Using Muscle and Motion Sensing
    https://www.hackster.io/news/researchers-build-a-plug-and-play-system-for-gesture-control-using-muscle-and-motion-sensing-428305e0f4d2

    Reading muscle signals and tracking the wearer’s motion, a neural network pipeline proved capable of drone control via gesture.

    Reply
  6. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Dangerous flying car drone zoomed into UK’s Gatwick Airport airspace after killswitch failed
    Goodwood Festival of Speed took a nasty turn in 2019, finds AAIB
    https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/19/airspeeder_alauda_drone_goodwood_investigation/

    A “flying car” drone being shown off at Goodwood Aerodrome in England was using unlicensed spectrum for safety-critical radio commands – and when its operators lost control the craft climbed into airspace reserved for Gatwick Airport, an accident report has revealed.

    The homebuilt Alauda Airspeeder Mk.II crashed into a field near the airfield in Chichester, West Sussex, after climbing to a height of 2,398 metres (7,867 feet) – well inside one of the holding stacks for airliners flying to Britain’s second-busiest airport.

    Reply
  7. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Unbelievable DRONE display – Guinness World Records
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj1T2AWcI6o&feature=share

    The longest animation performed by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is 26 min 19 sec and was achieved by EFYI Group (China) and supported by Tianjin University (China) in Tianjin, China, on 18 December 2020.

    They depicted the life of Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh

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  8. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Shawn Robert this was largely work of Finnish engineers working at Intel Finnish office:

    Flying nearly two thousand drones would seem to require a huge crowd, but at the opening there were only a dozen people handling the drones.

    “There were seven of us Finns in total.”

    The flight routes had been pre-programmed as always, so things happened automatically in the show itself.

    Anttu Koski, 41, originally from RUOVESI, works as a software engineer at Intel, whose team made the inaugural airplane presentation. Intel is a multinational technology company.

    The job is to be responsible for the software that is inside the Drones.

    The drones used in the performance are designed for a light show. They carry bright LED lights that can display over 4 billion different colors. The drone set is controlled from the control computer by one pilot,

    https://www.hs.fi/urheilu/art-2000008151121.html

    Reply
  9. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony included a light display with 1,800 drones
    https://www.engadget.com/tokyo-olympics-drone-display-183750593.html

    Toward the end of the ceremony, a fleet of 1,824 drones took to the skies above the Olympic Stadium. Initially arrayed in the symbol of the 2020 Games, they then took on the shape of the Earth before a rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” which was reworked by Hans Zimmer for the Olympics, played across the stadium.

    We’ve seen displays like this before. At Super Bowl LI in 2017, a pre-taped segment featuring 300 Intel drones forming the US flag punctuated Lady Gaga’s halftime performance. Technically, the drone show that occurred above Tokyo isn’t the biggest ever. As of earlier this year, that distinction belongs to a 3,281-display Hyundai-owned car brand Genesis put on in Shanghai, China. But even with fewer drones involved, the Tokyo drone show was still impressive.

    Reply
  10. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Suomalainen Anttu Koski, 41, teki öisin salaisia koelentoja Tokiossa – perjantaina koko maailma sai tietää, mistä oli kyse https://www.is.fi/olympialaiset/art-2000008152176.html

    Reply

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