Ishveena Singh

Axon, the company that invented Taser stun guns, says it has “formally” begun the development of a Taser drone to address America’s chronic gun violence problem. The concept, which has been voted firmly against by the company’s own Al Ethics Advisory Board, has resulted in immediate backlash and contempt from social media users.

North Dakota calls itself “the Silicon Valley of drone innovation.” And this summer, the state will be able to do full justice to that tag when six companies simultaneously fly their drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) for applications ranging from security surveillance to utility inspections.

Draganfly has announced a new delivery drone called Heavy Lift, which can transport packages weighing up to 67 pounds (30kg) to customers within 18 miles (30km). The Canadian drone manufacturer said over two decades of industry experience has gone into making this engineering feat possible. In addition, Draganfly has launched a long-range laser scanning system that can produce survey-grade point cloud data.

California-based drone logistics company Matternet, which has been working successfully with Swiss Post since 2017, says it will take over drone delivery operations from Switzerland’s national postal service starting January 1, 2023. In addition, Matternet will leverage its experience from operations in Switzerland to build Europe’s first city-wide drone delivery network.

Canadian drone manufacturer Draganfly has announced the launch of its new North American-made Commander 3 XL drone. Draganfly is calling the high-endurance, weather-resistant, multirotor UAV the “Swiss Army Knife” of drones.

Toronto-based drone logistics firm Drone Delivery Canada has received Transport Canada’s nod to conduct beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone delivery operations for the University of British Columbia’s Remote Communities Drone Transport Initiative (DTI) program.

DJI has just released a massive new firmware update for its flagship Mavic 3 drone. Among other things, the update adds Pro settings and RAW photo capture to the zoom camera as well as HLG support for the main camera.

DJI Mini 3 Pro, the tech giant’s newest and most powerful sub-250-gram drone, is a huge leap forward in terms of hardware and performance. As pre-orders pour in from across the globe, a DJI product manager reflects on the company’s revolutionary Mini series and discusses how the team approached the task of exceedingly high expectations to design the Mini 3 Pro.

Litchi, one of the most popular third-party flight apps for DJI drones, has updated its FPV video livestreaming feature to support the DJI Mini, Mini 2, Mini SE, Mavic Air 2, Air 2S, and Mavic 2 Zoom/Pro drones.

Autonomous drone charging station hardware manufacturer Heisha has launched its smallest drone dock yet, the D50. The new drone-in-a-box solution is compatible with a wide variety of aircraft that use 2S-4S batteries, such as the DJI Mavic and Phantom drones as well as Autel, Skydio, and Parrot products.

China’s EHang, a pioneer in passenger-grade drones and urban air mobility solutions, is gearing up to offer air taxi services in Thailand through a joint venture with one of the country’s largest conglomerates CP Group.

In a first for Japan, renewable energy firm afterFIT has received approval to fly autonomous drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) at night. The approval has been granted by the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism.

US researchers are building a drone-based communication network that would leverage the laws of quantum physics to make information exchange ultra-secure. While this system can prove beneficial in several scenarios, one prominent use case is warfare wherein quantum drones could provide one-time crypto-keys to relay critical messages that spies and enemies would not be able to intercept.

Ocean acidification is a serious threat to marine ecosystems. When carbon dioxide (CO2) is absorbed by seawater, chemical reactions occur that reduce seawater pH. This affects the ability of marine organisms such as corals and crabs to build and maintain their shells. The Gulf of Alaska’s cold waters naturally hold more carbon dioxide. And in an era of climate change, it’s always at risk of reaching a tipping point. This is why researchers are now hoping that a 7-foot-long, bright pink underwater drone will help them get a deeper understanding of the ocean’s chemistry.

There’s no question that the brains inside Skydio drones are rather impressive. These things are masters of AI and autonomy, capable of carrying out tasks that can prove challenging for other drones. The team, naturally, knows everything there’s to know about building autonomous robots at scale. And now, it’s ready to share its learnings with the wider robotics community by making public SymForce – the library that powers the motion planner and computer vision systems used by Skydio drones.

We’re working toward a future where passenger air taxis and drone deliveries are to become a part of everyday mobility. But how will these autonomous systems access important information, such as deteriorating weather conditions, to complete each flight safely? To address this issue, NASA researchers are exploring the creation of a decentralized data and reasoning hub that would help autonomous aircraft to make critical safety decisions rapidly.

Snap’s new pocket-sized Pixy selfie drone, which is available for purchase only in the US and France, comes with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) “Open” category CE C0 class identification label stamped on its battery compartment.

Parrot says its new ANAFI Ai 4G drone will be accessible from the cloud for mission planning, real-time video streaming, and fully remote management of the fleet. This capability is being enabled through the joint efforts of the drone maker and French software company UAVIA.

Skydio and Axon’s strategic partnership is coming along rather nicely. Public safety agencies flying Skydio drones and using Axon Respond real-time operations platform can now access live video feeds from their Skydio 2 and Skydio X2 aircraft for better situational awareness.

UK’s National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) is launching trials to fully automate the corrosion inspection of electricity transmission pylons with the help of autonomous drones.

DJI, the world’s top drone maker, has suffered yet another leak. Actual photos of the DJI Avata FPV drone have surfaced online, fanning speculation that the rumored CineWhoop product may just see a summer launch.