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Category: drones – Page 86

Amazon’s Prime Air drone delivery plans scored a boost on Thursday. The Federal Aviation Administration approved an exemption allowing the company to move forward with operations while working towards formal certification of the MK27 UA aircraft and the airline operations. The approval comes with significant limits, but allows the company to continue development of the platform and supports progress towards the necessary certifications.

The relief provided in this 44807 exemption would enable the Amazon MK27 unmanned aircraft (MK27 UA) and associated aircraft systems (MK27 UAS) to operate in cargo delivery operations without an airworthiness certificate. The FAA concludes that Amazon’s compliance with the conditions and limitations of this exemption, along with the FAA’s safety evaluation of the MK27 UAS, will enable Amazon’s operations using the MK27 UAS without adversely affecting safety. Amazon is currently engaged in the process to receive a type certificate for the MK27 UAS utilized in its operations.

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💥💥💥💥💥💥💥Humanitarian Day, the UK Space Agency announced £3.4 million of new funding for 10 leading-edge projects, backing UK academics using space to tackle global development problems – from the spread of malaria to human trafficking and forced labor. In 2018, there were an estimated 228 million cases and 405,000 deaths from malaria alone.

These projects will develop solutions to global challenges that will open up new opportunities for UK space expertise to help countries overseas to deal with myriad problems. Among the others being backed are space-based solutions that will help protect wildlife habitats in Kenya and another that will improve resilience to flooding in Bangladesh, which is suffering the most prolonged monsoon rains in decades.

On World Humanitarian Day, the UK Space Agency announced £3.4 million of new funding for 10 leading-edge projects, backing UK academics using space to tackle global development problems – from the spread of malaria to human trafficking and forced labor. In 2018, there were an estimated 228 million cases and 405,000 deaths from malaria alone.

Using satellite, air-borne and ground-based sensing technology, academics at The Open University will detect where mosquitoes are most likely to breed, and support efforts to tackle this deadly disease at its source. Once identified, ‘sprayer drones’ will release biocontrol agents that will kill mosquito larvae without affecting other species, as part of the DETECT project.

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Ahead of a likely ban on the US federal government’s use of Chinese-made quadcopters, including popular DJI drones, the Department of Defense has approved the products of five US-based unmanned air vehicle (UAV) makers for government use.

Those companies are Altavian, Parrot, Skydio, Teal and Vantage Robotics.

Small UAVs from these manufacturers have been deemed cyber-secure by the Pentagon – not vulnerable to backdoor spying that some suspect might be possible from the video cameras and other sensors attached to Chinese-made DJI drones. The US Congress is considering banning the US federal government from using foreign-made drones as part of its 2021 National Defense Authorization Act.

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Amazon isn’t just thinking about delivery with its drones.

The new patent made public this week reveals an idea for a drone-powered towing system designed for skiers, surfers, skaters, and more.

“While there are various known uses for unmanned aerial vehicles, certain techniques for controlling the unmanned aerial vehicles are relatively limiting with respect to other uses,” according to the patent filing, originally filed in June 2016. “For example, current hand-operated remote controls for automated aerial vehicles are not conducive to users being able to operate the remote controls while simultaneously utilizing their hands for other purposes.”

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By Elias Marat

Researchers for the U.S. Army are hoping to formulate a new shape-shifting material that can heal itself on its own in hopes to achieve the kind of futuristic killing technology famously depicted in the 1991 science-fiction film, Terminator 2.

In fact, the film’s villain, the T-1000, directly provided the inspiration to one of the Army engineers working on a project to develop “soft robotic” drones and unmanned aircraft based on flexible, self-repairing and self-reconfiguring materials, reports Military.com.

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This approach to increasing capacity will be particularly important as robots shrink to the microscale and below—scales at which current stand-alone batteries are too big and inefficient.

“Robot designs are restricted by the need for batteries that often occupy 20% or more of the available space inside a robot, or account for a similar proportion of the robot’s weight,” said Nicholas Kotov, the Joseph B. and Florence V. Cejka Professor of Engineering, who led the research.

Applications for mobile robots are exploding, from delivery drones and bike-lane take-out bots to robotic nurses and warehouse robots. On the micro side, researchers are exploring swarm robots that can self-assemble into larger devices. Multifunctional structural batteries can potentially free up space and reduce weight, but until now they could only supplement the main battery.

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