Bruce Crumley

Drone safe navigation tech specialist Iris Automation will be supplying UAV services company Flying Lion with its ground-based Casia G and detect and avoid system to permit faster deployment of urgent first responder missions by client police departments.

When DroneDJ last visited Phil James in 2021, the former police officer had focused his passion for piloting drones into looking for lost dogs in his Nottinghamshire, UK, homebase and reuniting them with their owners – work that by April of that year had resulting in 47 of those happy endings. Cut to March 2023, and James’s aerial efforts have increased that joyful total to nearly 1,400.

Maker of both hybrid and entirely electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) airplanes, Horizon Aircraft has revealed research on what backers of new craft development expect in the early phases of operation, which ranks much-anticipated air taxi services surprisingly low on that list.

The European Commission, the executive body of the 27-member European Union (EU), is soliciting input from various actors in the UAV sector to help formulate unified guidelines and identify effective counter-drone platforms to mitigate potential threats from small aircraft.

Google’s corporate cousin Wing Aviation has repeatedly innovated its methods of organizing and operating UAV transport of ordered goods between retailers and customers. Now it’s taking that to another level by devising reactive, pragmatic, and automated networks of delivery drones whose flexibility and increased efficiencies are what the company thinks will be key to massively scaling the activity.

Australian developer of vertiports, Skyportz, has struck another deal to adapt existing commercial properties across that nation to serve as operating and recharging hubs for nearing air taxi services.

Drone giant DJI has responded to a study that revealed significant security flaws in the firmware controlling four of its models by offering assurances it had been informed of the gaps and moved to eliminate them before the German researchers behind the discovery released their findings.

Air taxi developer Archer Aviation says it finalized several key details related to the financing of its future electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft manufacturing plant in Covington, Georgia, and, as a result, has begun construction of the initial 350,000-square-foot facility of its larger production plant.

Leading UAV developers DraganFly, Quantum-Systems, AeroVironment, and Teledyne Flir are among the companies that have provided cutting-edge aerial craft to Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, but Australian firm SYPAQ Systems is distinguishing itself in that supportive effort by providing Kyiv with drones made of cardboard.

Six months after getting mandatory approval from regulators, Swiss drone delivery company RigiTech began the first regular beyond visual line of sight (BVLOSL) operations in France on Monday, providing aerial shuttles of blood and biological samples between testing labs.

Officials in Ireland have earned plaudits over the years for encouraging new technologies as drivers of innovation and economic growth, but they aren’t getting any applause for their perplexingly sluggish response in dealing with a series of drone sightings that have disrupted traffic at Dublin Airport, causing multiple flights to be redirected.

South Korean aircraft developer Plana doesn’t plan to introduce its first air taxi  for a few years yet, but it’s already initiating work to create what it says will be Asia’s first international corridor for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) flights between its domestic market and Japan.

DJI has discontinued the production and sale of the AeroScope drone detection and identification system that has been adopted by airports, government agencies, and private businesses as a tool to keep airspaces around their facilities safe from unauthorized UAV penetration.

German researchers say they’ve found security gaps in four models of DJI drones – albeit not the kind that US politicians have claimed to justify placing the company’s craft on federal blacklists.

A UK drone pilot has been slapped with a hefty fine and a suspended prison sentence for having flown his UAV during a historic airshow event last July, during which it came dangerously close to a rare World War II-era Royal Air Force plane as it passed.

Specialized drone and tactical products maker BRINC is expanding its line of tech designed for emergency responders, public safety services, police, firefighting, and disaster units with today’s release of the LEMUR 2 UAV, whose range of cutting-edge capabilities has been conceived to reduce the danger posed to the lives of people working to save others.

Red Cat Holding is continuing to transition its Teal Drones affiliate from its initial positioning as a maker of security and defense UAVs to one as a leading innovator in tech-packed small craft for military clients with the incorporation of Athena AI computer vision assets on its new Teal 2 product.

AutoFlight, a developer of next-generation craft for air taxi operation, has announced the current version of its Prosperity I plane set a world record for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) flight by covering over 250 kilometers on a single charge.

The Magic Kingdom got a little extra special – and weird ­­­– this weekend when visitors at Disneyland spotted a banned drone hovering overhead, until it navigated to one side and promptly crashed in some bushes. Strangest of all: the aerial invader made its appearance above Frontierland, not Tomorrowland as might have been more logical.

In what may well be more bad news for soldiers in the renewed Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine, a video has materialized indicating just how quickly authorities are apparently assembling the fleet of 1,000 FPV drones said they’d obtain for kamikaze strikes on invading troops.

Buzz it, and they will come – the cops, that is. State lawmakers in Iowa have introduced legislation that calls for creating fines and potential prison sentences for pilots who fly their drones within 400 feet of farms raising livestock.