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D.C. police will start using drones to respond alongside officers to some calls, including barricade situations and large-scale public gatherings, bolstering a broader government effort that has increased video surveillance of the District.

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A high school robotics team has built the world’s smallest and cheapest network switch.

The device was created by Murex Robotics and formed by students from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.

The invention was necessary because they could not find an affordable embedded ethernet switch for a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) they were building for an underwater drone competition.

However, the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement of policy on Tuesday: “The Administration strongly opposes Section 924, which would establish a Drone Corps as a basic branch of the Army. A Drone Corps would create an unwarranted degree of specialization and limit flexibility to employ evolving capabilities. Further, the Secretary of the Army already has the authority to create branches, as needed, and creating a branch through legislation would detract from the Army’s flexibility in addressing current and future requirements.” The statement included a list of concerns about various items in the House version of the NDAA that it finds objectionable.

Senior Army officers have also come out against the proposal.

As some entities identify new (or at least overlooked) sources to meet the growing demand for rare earth materials, others are looking toward new tools. UK deep-tech company Materials Nexus announced on Tuesday that it has designed a new rare-earth-free permanent magnet with the help of its AI platform. It says the AI-driven discovery and development process was 200 times faster than the resource-intensive manual route, bringing new hope to an electrifying world with a growing appetite for powerful magnets.

With the world moving away from internal combustion engines and gradually embracing electric mobility, the demand for compact, high-power motors is rapidly rising. By far the most popular option in the automotive industry right now is the permanent magnet motor, which powers upward of 80% of modern electric vehicles.

Materials Nexus estimates that demand for permanent magnets will grow tenfold by 2030, in the EV industry alone. And it’s not just electric cars and trucks, either. Permanent magnet motors are in demand for many applications, including robotics, drones, wind turbines and HVAC equipment.

Demonstration of RAF jackal drone firing missiles.


This footage shows a demonstration where a new RAF ‘Jackal’ drone fires missile at a target. The missile can be seen launching out the new drone as it flies above the ground.

The JACKAL drone capability has been designed and developed by experts from UK-based Flyby Technology, with Turkish partners FlyBVLOS Technology and Maxwell Innovations providing design engineering and prototyping expertise, to fill a recently discovered gap in modern combat operations.

As a Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) platform, JACKAL is designed to satisfy a number of roles, including Battlefield Air Interdiction, Close Air Support, engaging helicopters in flight and killing tanks, to denying the use of runways and roads.

The trial — sponsored by the Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO) of the Royal Air Force – involved teams from Flyby and the technology giant Thales which also manufactures the LMM.

Researchers from the Photonics Research Laboratory (PRL)-iTEAM at the Universitat Politècnica de València, in collaboration with iPRONICS, have developed a groundbreaking photonic chip. This chip is the world’s first to be universal, programmable, and multifunctional, making it a significant advancement for the telecommunications industry, data centers, and AI computing infrastructures. It is poised to enhance a variety of applications including 5G communications, quantum computing, data centers, artificial intelligence, satellites, drones, and autonomous vehicles.

The development of this revolutionary chip is the main result of the European project UMWP-Chip, led by researcher José Capmany and funded by an ERC Advanced Grant from the European Research Council. The work has been published in the Nature Communications journal.

2023.


Drones combining the bodies of taxidermy pheasants and pigeons, with flapping wing mechanisms closely mimic living birds.

Researchers at New Mexico Tech have designed these lifelike drones to hover and glide but further development is required to implement a broader range of avian motions. These flapping-wing drones could help study flocks of birds or enable military spy mission.

Learn more ➤ https://www.newscientist.com/article/.

“Batteries are the crux of many of the most important emerging technologies in both the civilian world and, important to our profession, on the battlefield,” said United States Military Academy Cadet Michael Williams. “More energy dense batteries allow, for instance, greater range on electric vehicles, longer battery lives for radios, and longer flight times for drones. Our work helps make manufacturing these batteries easier.”

Cadets Michael Williams, Avery Patel, and Nancy Astable have been working on a long-term project with their faculty mentors Dr. Enoch Nagelli, Dr. Simuck Yuk, and Army Col. John Burpo to develop new ways to maximize energy storage and generation for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Armaments Center. In collaboration with Cornell University, the team at USMA’s Department of Chemistry and Life Sciences is pursuing innovative approaches to increasing the quality and use of batteries and fuel cells.

The value of conducting scientific research to solve real-world problems is clear to the cadets.