Lifeboat Foundation

The air taxi’s maker, German aviation start-up Volocopter, has previously conducted public demonstration flights in Germany, Dubai and Finland.

“[This] is an important milestone for the introduction of urban air mobility, simply because we give people the image in their mind and the opportunity to see how the vehicle behaves in the air, and how quiet it is in full flight,” Volocopter CEO Florian Reuter told Al Jazeera after the test run.

Volocopter is one of several companies developing a drone equivalent to traditional helicopters, and proponents say electrically powered air taxis offer a safer, quieter, emissions-free alternative.

Search and Rescue

This isn’t the first time a drone has proven invaluable in a search-and-rescue operation — we’ve seen others help save stranded swimmers, earthquake victims, and lost hikers.

Continue reading “Man Uses His Heat-Seeking Drone to Find Missing Child” »

Drone footage from John Winkopp shows Elon Musk’s SpaceX building another Starship rocket in Cocoa, Florida.

United Parcel Service Inc. is striking a series of drone-delivery agreements with health-care groups as it develops new technology pitched to the growing medical market.

The plans include expanding the use of drones to deliver cargo such as medical samples and supplies on hospital campuses in Utah and elsewhere, and an agreement with CVS Health Corp. to evaluate the use of drones for home delivery of prescriptions and other products, UPS said Monday.

The agreements are the first UPS has announced since the package delivery giant won U.S. regulatory approval to operate commercial drone flights through the company’s Flight Forward subsidiary. The nod from the Federal Aviation Administration paves the way for UPS to scale up operations as it competes with FedEx Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and others vying to develop drone delivery services in the U.S.

Rogue drones will be brought down by “detect and destroy” technology under plans for a new national counter-drone force to prevent Gatwick-style disruption, ministers have announced.

The new mobile special unit, to be set up by the Home Office, will be available to any police force or law enforcement agency in the UK to counter potential drone threats at major events or malicious attacks such as the chaos at Gatwick airport last Christmas.

The unit is expected to have military-grade cameras, radar and radio frequency scanners to detect rogue drones, similar to those deployed by the Army at Gatwick.

Outfield Technologies is a Cambridge-based agri-tech start-up company which uses drones and artificial intelligence, to help fruit growers maximise their harvest from orchard crops.

Outfield Technologies’ founders Jim McDougall and Oli Hilbourne have been working with Ph.D. student Tom Roddick from the Department’s Machine Intelligence Laboratory to develop their technology capabilities to be able to count the blossoms and apples on a tree via drones surveying enormous apple orchards.

Continue reading “Predicting fruit harvest with drones and artificial intelligence” »

The drones are loaded with packages at a “Nest”, where Wing employees pack them with up to 3 pounds of goods.

A new proposal scheduled to be released from the office of Senator Lee (R-Utah) tomorrow would put the airspace up to 200 feet in altitude over private property under the control of the property owner – and would restrict the FAA’s right to regulate airspace below 200 feet in altitude, making any zoning or regulatory decisions the right of the state or tribal entity governing the land.

DRONELIFE received a summary of the bill from Senator Lee’s office. We may not quote from the summary, as the bill is due to be released tomorrow. In essence, the bill seeks to clarify and control two significant legal issues that remain unresolved: 1) Establish the airspace to 200 feet in altitude above private property as under the exclusive control of the property owner; and 2) Establish state, tribal and local governments as having exclusive and absolute rights to regulate that airspace.

In summary, the bill would propose that the altitude between 200 and 400 feet be designated for the use of civilian drones – although it wouldn’t prohibit the FAA from allowing drones above 400 feet. The area under 200 feet would be under the jurisdiction of state, local and tribal governments – and the bill would call for a redefinition of “navigable airspace” to make that clear.

Learn about the breakthroughs in AI that are helping drones “think” for themselves.