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Category: drones – Page 65

Clues to the Origins of Life in Our Solar System

When people think about the search for life beyond Earth they often think about looking beyond our solar system and even beyond our galaxy. But what about looking closer to home? Titan, Saturn’s largest moon has a dense atmosphere, an internal liquid water ocean, and stable bodies of liquid methane on its surface. While we have not found any evidence of life on Titan, its chemistry and environment make it an interesting place to explore. Europa is a moon of Jupiter with a water-ice crust and liquid ocean underneath. Its atmosphere is very thin, but it’s composed mostly of oxygen.

Zibi (Elizabeth) Turtle is the principal investigator of the Dragonfly mission which will land a drone-like vehicle on Titan to conduct sorties to sample and examine sites around Titan. Morgan Cable is also on the Dragonfly Team, and both Zibi and Morgan are working on the Europa Clipper mission which will perform reconnaissance of Europa to investigate whether it could have conditions suitable for life. Join Zibi and Morgan, along with SETI Institute planetary astronomer Franck Marchis for their discussion about what makes Titan and Europa such intriguing places to search for clues about the origins of life in our solar system.

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Turkey’s Baykar rolls out its vertical take-off, landing drone

Leading defense company Baykar has unveiled for the first time its newly designed drone that can hover, take off and land vertically at Turkey’s largest technology and aviation event, Teknofest.

The flight tests of the vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) are due to be completed soon. Mass production and delivery phases are expected to start in 2022.

The new UAV does not need a landing track and can take off from several different places, including naval or mobile platforms, said Burak Özbek, an air vehicle design engineer at Baykar, which is already known worldwide for its landmark Bayraktar TB2 and Akıncı drones.

DronePaint: A human-swarm interaction system for environment exploration and artistic painting

Researchers at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) in Russia have recently developed an innovative system for human-swarm interactions that allows users to directly control the movements of a team of drones in complex environments. This system, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv is based on an interface that recognizes human gestures and adapts the drones’ trajectories accordingly.

Quadcopters, drones with four rotors that can fly for long periods of time, could have numerous valuable applications. For instance, they could be used to capture images or videos in natural or remote environments, can aid search-and– and help to deliver goods to specific locations.

So far, however, drones have rarely been deployed for these applications and have instead been primarily used for entertainment purposes. One of the reasons for this is that complex missions in unknown environments require users operating the drones to have a basic understanding of sophisticated algorithms and interfaces.

Chinese scientists’ robot fish could pave way for low-cost prosthetics

The researchers, from the University of Science and Technology of China, hope that the technique – which uses liquid metal to mimic natural muscle movements — could also help to administer drugs inside the body and underwater drones.

Researchers created an artificial muscle using liquid metal that allows it to expand and contract and hope one day to use the technology to help humans.

UK Ministry of Defence Employed Rafael’s Drone Dome to Defend G7 Summit from Drone Threats

Earlier this year, in June 2,021 the British Ministry of Defence employed Rafael’s DRONE DOME counter-UAV system to protect world leaders during the G7 Summit in Cornwall, England from unmanned aerial threats. Three years ago, Britain’s Defence Ministry purchased several DRONE DOME systems which it has successfully employed in a multitude of operational scenarios, including for protecting both the physical site and participants of this year’s G7 summit. Rafael’s DRONE DOME is an innovative end-to-end, combat-proven counter-Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS), providing all-weather, 360-degree rapid defence against hostile drones. Fully operational and globally deployed, DRONE DOME offers a modular, robust infrastructure comprised of electronic jammers and sensors and unique artificial intelligence algorithms to effectively secure threatened air space.

Meir Ben Shaya, Rafael EVP for Marketing and Business Development of Air Defence Systems: Rafael today recognizes two new and key trends in the field of counter-UAVs, both of which DRONE DOME can successfully defend against. The first trend is the number of drones employed during an attack, and the operational need to have the ability counter multiple, simultaneous attacks; this is a significant, practical challenge that any successful system must be able to overcome. The second trend is the type of tool being employed. Previously, air defense systems were developed to seek out conventional aircraft, large unmanned aerial vehicles, and missile, but today these defense systems must also tackle smaller, slower, low-flying threats which are becoming more and more autonomous.

This drone-deploying blimp could be Amazon’s next aerial fulfillment center

An army of drones descending over a city from a massive corporate airship…damn, amazon just out-cyberpunked cyberpunk itself.

While the origin of this video has something, in part, to do with April Fool’s day, there’s some truth to this concept too. Amazon has, for long, been experimenting with aerial deliveries, sending unmanned drones to fulfill package deliveries. In fact, the blimp idea isn’t completely far-fetched, either. Click the below link to read the entire article.

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US Navy, Boeing conduct first-ever refueling between unmanned tanker, F-35C

“Once operational, the MQ-25 will refuel every receiver-capable platform including E-2,” Reed said in a separate news release on the August flight test between T1 and the Navy’s Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Two Zero (VX) 20. “This flight keeps us on a fast track to getting the Stingray out to the fleet where its refueling capability will greatly increase the range and operational flexibility of the carrier air wing and strike group.”

The first aerial refueling test was conducted on June 4, when an F/A-18E-F Super Hornet refueled in air with the unmanned tanker for the first time in naval aviation history. In this first in-air encounter with the drone, a Super Hornet approached to take measurements, made several “dry connects” to practice connecting and detaching from the tanker, and made two actual refuelings, with 300 pounds and then 25 pounds of fuel being passed from the Stingray to the Super Hornet at different altitudes and flying conditions.

Last month, the Navy and Boeing conducted in a virtual environment the first manned-unmanned teaming event between the Stingray and a Super Hornet, where the manned jet bypassed the ground control station and communicated directly with the tanker drone to give directions on where and when to rendezvous for a refueling.

SpaceX: Elon Musk shares photo of drone ship that enables more missions

A Shortfall of Gravitas: SpaceX’s new drone ship detailed

The ship supported its first mission on August 29. This was the 23rd Commercial Resupply Services mission, the latest in a series of launches for NASA that sends cargo to the International Space Station.

A Shortfall of Gravitas is a notable upgrade over previous ships. SpaceX explained during the mission launch livestream that it improves over its predecessors with a fully autonomous operation procedure. That means it can travel to sea, find its position, receive the rocket, grab the rocket with the “octograbber” robot and return it to land — all autonomously.

Israeli firm unveils armed robot to patrol volatile borders

LOD, Israel — An Israeli defense contractor on Monday unveiled a remote-controlled armed robot it says can patrol battle zones, track infiltrators and open fire. The unmanned vehicle is the latest addition to the world of drone technology, which is rapidly reshaping the modern battlefield.

Proponents say such semi-autonomous machines allow armies to protect their soldiers, while critics fear this marks another dangerous step toward robots making life-or-death decisions.

The four-wheel-drive robot presented Monday was developed by the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries’ “REX MKII.”