Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Main Writer at DroneDJ, where he covers all drone-related news and writes product reviews. He also contributes to the other sites in the 9to5Mac group such as; 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, and Electrek.
Haye can be reached at haye@dronedj.com or @hayekesteloo
The new managers of the iconic Swiss cliff face restaurant are calling for a ban on ‘annoying’ drones. The Äscher mountain restaurant is located in the eastern part of Switzerland and is a very popular destination among Instagram users, many of whom use drones to capture the beautiful scenery.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) assembled a fleet of more than 200 drones to support officers during international border investigations, protecting VIP visitors and for other purposes. The drones will be equipped with video cameras and thermal image sensors. DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual anyone? The RCMP is also looking into more advanced drone applications such as 3D mapping capabilities.
The North Dakota Department of Transportation announced that it had received a four-year waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly drones over people during safety tests in North Dakota. The drones that will be used during these tests are equipped with the ParaZero SafeAir parachute recovery system.
Russia unveils a military surveillance drone that resembles an owl spreading its wings. The Russian spy drone was shown at the Defense Ministry’s annual military expo in Moscow on Tuesday. Footage from the ministry’s news channel shows the fixed-wing drone rolling across a grass area right before take-off.
The Kalashnikov Group showed its latest surveillance and attacked unmanned aircraft, or next-gen kamikaze drone, that can autonomously locate and destroy targets in the air, on land, and in the water. This so-called “ZALA Lancet” attack drone does not require any ground or sea-based infrastructure to help it locate and engage its targets. Instead, it relies on his own surveillance, navigation and communication systems. The drone can also carry a 3 kg payload to execute precision strikes within a 4 km radius.
The NYPD will monitor the skies over Manhattan during the New York City Pride March this coming Sunday, mostly because they fear that drones could fall from the sky, top officials said on Tuesday
It seems that DJI is less focused on drones this year, likely because of all the suspicion around unmanned aircraft to be used as spying devices. Some of the latest products, the Chinese drone maker released have nothing to do with flying at all. They are the DJI RoboMaster S1, the DJI Osmo Action, and the DJI Osmo Pocket, for which DJI released new firmware today.
Measuring the growth of a Brazilian Rainforest can be a big challenge, however, an international team of researchers uses lidar-equipped drones as low-cost data collectors to monitor the forest restoration. The researchers have developed a drone that is equipped with three-dimensional laser scanning and hyperspectral imaging systems and that is capable of producing high-resolution maps and collecting hundreds of images at different wavelengths for any given area. With the drones, larger areas of the forest can be observed more efficiently than was previously done with researchers on the ground. The unmanned aircraft also have an advantage over lidar-equipped airplanes, which are more expensive to run and more complicated to organize.
You can find more articles about drones being used for research here.
A drone photo shows a massive crater resulting from a bomb explosion in Germany. The crater is in a barley field near Ahlbach, Germany and according to experts is the result of a WWII bomb explosion that occurred on June 24 of this year. Officials say that the inexplicable explosion that shook residents of a central German town during the early morning hours last Sunday was “with almost absolute certainty” a World War II bomb. Drone photos later captured the crater that resulted from the nighttime explosion.
DJI is getting drawn into the U.S – China trade war as more U.S. government officials are increasingly concerned that DJI drones might be sending sensitive surveillance data back to mainland China. Earlier today, in an effort to stem the tide, DJI released two statements. The drone maker is introducing the DJI Government Edition and has sent a letter to the Senate Subcommittee to set the record straight “on incorrect claims presented during a hearing last week.” Furthermore, DJI is repurposing one of their warehouses in California to start building government drones right here in the United States. This is part 3 of 3.
Earlier today, DJI introduced the DJI Government Edition on some of its drones to offer a level of data security that meets the “stringent requirements of the government sector for data management, risk mitigation, and enterprise-level data sharing control.” However, that is not all, in a letter to the Senate Subcommittee, DJI wants to set the record straight on incorrect claims presented during a hearing last week. This is part 2 of 3. Stay tuned.
DJI has sent out two important messages today in response to the growing concerns among U.S. government officials about data security. It is not the first time that these concerns have raised their heads. We first reported on this back in 2017, but recently, and because of the intensifying trade ware between the U.S. and China, the concerns about DJI drones possibly sending sensitive data back to mainland China have come back in focus. DJI is now responding with two messages and a Youtube video. The Chinese drone maker is introducing a DJI Government Edition and is setting the “record straight on incorrect speculation presented during U.S Senate hearing“. We will post DJI’s messages first before reporting on these matters in greater detail. This is part 1 of 3. Stay tuned.
Drones used to inspect troubled bridges in South Carolina by researchers at Clemson University and the University of South Carolina. Once that project has been completed, the results will be handed over to the South Carolina Department of Transportation. The research team is using drones and robots in Lexington County to assess the bridges both below and above the water.
The Department of Defense supports the use of drones on any CalFire operation until the end of the year. Previously, state officials would have to seek permission for every drone mission they wanted to perform. The permission to use drones to map California wildfires until the end of the year comes as a breakthrough. Especially now that drones have become standard equipment for fire departments to keep firefighters safe and to assist in search and rescue missions.
Researchers in China are using drones as nodes in the development of an airborne quantum communications network. The article describes how such a network, using a quantum drone would be nigh unhackable.
An interesting piece on the FAA, drone deliveries and drone rulemaking. The article describes the main challenges that are holding back the drone industry and the widespread use of unmanned aircraft for delivering packages and life-saving medical supplies. Industry experts estimated that large scale use of drones for commercial applications is still at least two to five years away.
UK database capturing information of drone pilots would cost an eye-watering £4m. The government database would collect the personal information of around 150.000 UK drone pilots. Apart from its very high initial price, the database would cost another £2.9m per year to maintain. The new database would be significantly more expensive than other previously used and comparable databases in the UK. The cost per drone pilot would come down to approximately £16.50 per pilot per year. In comparison, the FAA charges ‘only $5 USD once to register as a hobbyist drone pilot in the US.
Drone records rescue of a man in a wheelchair stuck in rising floodwaters. After spending more than 24 hours stuck in his motorized wheelchair in rising floodwaters, the 73 year-old-man from Mansfield said that he prayed to be rescued. According to local police, his family reported Jefferson missing on Saturday. The man who suffers from dementia was last seen around noon. Drones are increasingly being used during rescue operations to either find missing persons or as in this case to assist in the rescue.
DJI Spark out of stock! We already know that the DJI Spark 2 event that was scheduled for July 23rd has been postponed indefinitely. However, we have now learned that for some time the DJI Spark (both red and white editions) has been out of stock on DJI’s official online store. No word on whether this mini-drone will come back in stock at some point in time. The drone was launched in 2017 and has been due for replacement. Will the DJI Spark go the way of the dodo? I mean, the way of the DJI Phantom 4 Pro? I don’t know. What I do know, is that at this point many people are wondering if DJI will release any new drone in 2019 at all.
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) will host a webinar on unmanned systems for the defense community and the program for the upcoming Unmanned Systems – Defense. Protection. Security. (USDPS) conference. The webinar will take place on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 3 p.m. EDT.
In Spain, researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid work together with telecommunications corporation Telefonica, drone start-up Divisek Systems and drone operations company Dronitec to test the use of autonomous drones to fight wildfires. The drones to fight wildfires are part of a firefighting system that consists of a number of communication towers. Each of the towers is outfitted with a thermal camera and an autonomous drone that is stored in a special hangar.
Amazon delivery drones might be used to spy on your home. An Amazon patent filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office on June 12, 2015, and granted June 4 of this year, indicates that the e-commerce giant is planning to use its network of drones to form a neighborhood watch system and keep an eye on your home. The company calls it “surveillance as a service” and it would have its delivery drones record footage of your home when they are out delivering packages.
In a short interview on FOX Business Network’s After the Bell, DJI Director of Strategic Partnerships, Jan Gasparic said that “customers’ data is theirs and theirs alone” and “The fact is that your data sits on the drone itself, that’s fundamental.” There’s a link to the video of the interview below.
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At a hearing today by the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Subcommittee on Security, Brian Wynne, president and CEO of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), called for accelerated federal rulemakings and the development of holistic policy solutions that provide the framework to keep the nation’s skies secure.