Haye Kesteloo

To drive and accelerate policy Innovation the World Economic Forum has started a Drone Innovators Network which includes government agencies, academia and industry players like Parrot and DJI. The new network has been launched by the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and aims to have aviation authorities around the world share research and best practices as well as collaborate on innovative new drone policies, to ultimately accelerate responsible drone use across society.

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Good morning, Here are the headlines you may have missed over the last couple of days. We have news about the Autel Robotics Evo drone, the Third Shenzhen International UAV Expo 2018, Disrupt SF 2018, a DRAGON drone and two rescue stories involving a DJI Mavic Pro. Jump right in!

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Last Friday, the 2018 World Drone Congress and the Third Shenzhen International UAV Expo 2018 kicked off, displaying hundreds of different types of drones. The three-day event showed highlighted the booming drone industry in China and how the various types of drones might impact our day to day lives at some point.

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This year, Disrupt SF will feature a panel discussion with some of the biggest names in the drone industry. The panel will consist out of Arnaud Thiercelin, the head of the R&D department for DJI in the U.S., Adam Byrd the founder and CEO of Skydio and Chris Anderson, the CEO of 3DR. It will be interesting to hear what they have to say about the fast-growing drone industry.

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A man, by the name of Ben, was trying to shoot some footage of an Alaskan river filled with Salmon, but unfortunately, he crashes his DJI Mavic Pro drone into the river. Ben is able to recover the drone after it had been submerged in the fast-flowing water for a few minutes. All of the video footage, except the last clip when he crashed the drone, is saved. However, the most important question is, will the drone ever fly again after having been fully submerged in the water?

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Imagine you need a drone to get into a space for inspection purposes, for instance like they did at the Fukushima power plant. what kind of drone would you use? A very small one, that can fly through openings? That would probably be limited in flight time or other operations that require more battery power. A caged-in one, that bounces of walls and obstacles? That might get stuck or may not be able to perform inspections or pick things up. Or an autonomous flying drone, like the Skydio R1? That might work but may not be able to works its way through small or narrow openings. The roboticists at the JSK Lab at the University of Tokyo came up with a different approach, called the DRAGON drone which basically is autonomously flying arm that can twist and turn its way through openings.

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Good morning, here are yesterday’s headlines. We have news about a special Adorama event taking place in New York City next week, a sweet deal on a Yuneec Breeze 4K drone and an amazing racing drone taking on the Honda Red Bull Formula One racecar. Enjoy!

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Today, Chinese drone-maker DJI showed off their latest commercial on YouTube, called the “Epic Struggle”. This one, however, seems to be a little less well received than some of the previous commercials or short films, if you go by the comments. The video shows an active, outdoorsy-type woman climbing and hiking through the ‘wilderness’ but she has nobody to help her take some nice selfies or action shots. Toward the end of the clip, our main character all of a sudden sees this other female runner with… a DJI Mavic Air drone flying in front of her (Skydio R1-style) and filming her every move. A light bulb goes on. Never travel without a drone. Now, she too needs a Mavic Air!

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Adorama’s Inspire event will take place in New York City next week (June 25 – July 1) at various locations. Most interestingly for fans of unmanned aerial aircraft are the drone workshops that the company will be hosting. Dirk Dallas, who you probably know from #fromwhereidrone, will be teaching you the ins and outs of drone photography and videography in different hands-on workshops. So if you are in the area be sure to stop by and check it out!

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Well, if the drift video in this morning’s DroneRise post wasn’t enough to get you going then I’m sure the sound of a Formula One car will do it! In this short video from Team BlackSheep, we are watching CherryFPV take on Marc Márquez in the Honda Formula One racecar from team Red Bull. Not surprisingly, the little race drone does not stand a chance against the brutal acceleration of the Formula One racecar. However, what is becoming more obvious is the amazing perspective you can get when filming actions scenes with a race drone. I will add some other videos as well to show what I mean.

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Good morning, today we have rumors on the Mavic Pro II (2), tiny chips developed by MIT for nano-drones and drone tow-in surfing. And, to get your day started we have an awesome video showing drift cars. The footage is filmed from racing drones and simply looks amazing!

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On July 18th, DJI will introduce a new product that is widely expected (see poll here) to be the successor of the current Mavic Pro, the Mavic Pro II. As we get closer to the release date, the rumors are becoming more frequent and more detailed as well. We saw the same thing happen in the weeks before the Mavic Air was released back in January. Today, we have seen these latest rumors on Twitter that we believe are worth sharing with you. One of them being that the new Mavic Pro II (2) is likely to have all-around obstacle avoidance. Another one, speculating that there might be two versions.

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A team of MIT researchers has built a fully customized chip from the ground up. They focused on developing a chip with reduced power consumption and size while at the same time increasing its processing speeds. The new chip design will allow drones the size of a honeybee or so-called nano-drones to determine their location and navigate obstacles during flight.

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One of the latest and possibly biggest trends in water-boardsports is foiling. Years ago sailors already experimented and raced with the little moth sailboats outfitted with foils. However, during the last few years, we have seen foils being mounted under pretty much anything from windsurf-, surfboards to standup paddleboards and kiteboards. The only thing we hadn’t seen yet is a surfer on a foil board being towed-in by a drone. Until now.

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Good morning, Here are yesterday’s headlines with a deal on the Phantom 4 Advanced, using a drone to clean off debris from a power line and DJi’s new trademark registration POCA. But there is more. Yesterday Bill The Drone Reviewer had me as a guest on his show. See the video here. It was a pleasure to be on his show and I hope to meet him in New York on the 18th. Lastly, today’s video is the RAW footage from the drone that played a crucial role in finding the 75-year-old missing man in Norfolk. Watch the video below and see how drone help to save lives all around the world!

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In our search for more information on DJI’s most recent product announcement ‘See the bigger picture‘, we stumbled upon a new trademark filing from the Chinese drone-maker. DJI registered a new trademark ‘POCA‘ on May 17th in the camera gimbals category. Since it is a relatively new registration it may indicate a new product that DJI might release at some point in the future. Although keep in mind that not all trademarks are always actively used by companies. Sometimes, names are registered simply as a reservation or to prevent competitors from using that name.

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Good morning, here are the headlines you may have missed. We have the latest DJI FCC filing for you. A long read story in the NYT Magazine about drone pilots who sustain ‘moral injuries’ after flying drones in war zones. A great search and rescue story where a 75-year-old missing man is found with the help of a drone. DJI’s announcement. A foil paddleboard video and more… So, let’s jump in!

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Just now we discovered that DJI had filed for an FCC certificate (FCC ID SS3-NB06251803) for a new ‘Multilink’ wireless communication device. It seems to be a unit that you would wear over your ear or that works in conjunction with such a unit, and that is connected wirelessly to a controller. In the filing, it shows both the DJI Cendence and C1 controller. The unit works over both 2.4Ghz and 5.8Ghz frequencies. In the documents that accompany the filing, there is a lot of talk about Phantoms and Phantom 5, however, that seems to refer to testing equipment and not to any new drones. It is uncertain if this filing has any connection with the upcoming product launch on July 18th.

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The New York Times Magazine featured a lengthy but excellent article about the ‘wounds’ that drone pilots suffer when they engage remotely in overseas wars. For instance, behind computer screens at the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, drone pilots fly missions with unmanned aircraft such as the MQ-9 Reaper in far away places like Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen. Some people have thought that these ‘joystick pilots’ would escape the gravity of war but, we are now learning that they are suffering ‘moral injuries’ from their actions similarly to soldiers when they return home from battlefields.

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The Wall Street Journal has put together their list of “25 emerging leaders in hot corners of the tech industry.” The companies that were selected for the list had to show rapid growth and the expectation that the rapid growth would continue and to be innovation leaders in their subsector. This year two drone companies are included in the list: Kespry Inc. and Airobotics Ltd.

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