Ishveena Singh

Germany-based urban air mobility (UAM) startup Volocopter, which plans to launch fully-electric passenger air taxis and cargo drones around the world in coming years, says it has picked up $170 million as the first tranche of Series E funding to kick off services in “cities like Singapore, Rome, and Paris.”

Saildrone, which made history by sending an ocean drone into the eye of a hurricane last year, is going all-in to protect the coastal areas of the US with better ocean data. Following a $100 million Series C investment in October 2021, the company is now opening a new regional HQ and operations center in St. Petersburg, Florida.

A group of Finnish volunteers has hand-delivered 140 DJI Mavic Mini drones to the Ukrainian military to assist with reconnaissance efforts against the invading Russian forces.

With International Women’s Day (March 8) just around the corner, DJI is looking to celebrate female drone pilots with a campaign called #ChooseToFly. The drone maker is seeking inspirational stories from hobbyists and professional drone operators alike, promising a brand new DJI Mavic 3 to the best entry!

FCC filings, which tend to pop up not too long before a product is released commercially, indicate that two new DJI drones are indeed coming to North America.

SkyeBrowse, a reality capture platform that can convert your DJI or Autel drone video into a 3D model at the speed of coffee, was launched only in 2020, but it has already saved law enforcement departments in the US over 50,000 hours of manpower and $5 million in accident reconstruction. As the startup celebrates its recent $2.3 million seed round with a spate of hirings, let’s retrace its backstory to see how “the fastest and easiest drone reality capture platform in the world” came into being.

Mobile operator VEON, whose two biggest markets are Russia and Ukraine, says it will share the know-how of its drone-based AI solution with the international telecom community so that they can assist with the search and rescue of missing persons in their communities.

Autonomous drone mapping startup Emesent has announced its latest survey-grade LiDAR payload: Hovermap ST. The lightweight, IP65-rated solution is being launched with Emesent’s new Automated Ground Control feature that, the company stresses, enables autonomous data capture in harsher environments than ever and for a wider range of use cases.

Public health authorities in Tanzania’s semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar are using drones to locate and map mosquito breeding sites in malaria hotspots.

As part of its UAS integration initiative called BEYOND, the FAA has approved Iris Automation to fly a small drone autonomously beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) in a rural, unpopulated area south of Reno, Nevada.

Ordnance Survey (OS), the national mapping agency for Great Britain, has decided to incorporate Altitude Angel’s aeronautical data into its in-house survey planning software. The information will help the geospatial experts at OS determine whether it’s better to carry out a survey using a drone, or if it’s more appropriate for one of the agency’s 230 surveyors to get their boots on the ground.

Joining the push to make the drone community more gender-inclusive, AUVSI – the leading trade association for autonomy, robotics, and automated air, ground, and maritime vehicle industries – is rebranding itself as the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International.

Flyability, the Switzerland-based maker of the popular Elios range of drones for indoor and confined-space inspections, is establishing a new Asia-Pacific (APAC) regional hub in Singapore.

Ukraine is looking at agricultural drone technology to ensure it continues to be a major player in the global grains market despite escalating geopolitical tensions.

Spright, the drone division of air medical service provider Air Methods, is joining forces with Oregon-based Interpath Laboratory to launch a drone delivery network that can transport lab specimens from remote and rural areas quickly.

Draganfly is celebrating a major health and safety milestone with its spraying drones disinfecting more than 500,000 seats using the company’s proprietary pathogen and surface sanitizer technology.

In a US-first, two programs running under the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) are coming together to improve road safety with tethered drones.

Drone Racing League (DRL) says it has more than doubled its broadcast reach with the just-concluded 2021-22 season of high-speed drone racing. At the same time, digital viewership of DRL races has also skyrocketed, interestingly revealing China as the league’s second-largest market behind the United States.

DJI is rolling out a new firmware update for the Mavic Air 2 drone. At the same time, the technology giant is updating the DJI Fly app to version 1.5.10.

Aerospace company AVSS has been awarded a $1.1 million contract by the Canadian government to test whether its parachute delivery system can support drones to drop off packages at locations where it’s difficult to land an aircraft.

Australian startup Emesent has scooped up an impressive $23 million (AUD 32 million) in Series A funding to take its autonomous drone mapping and analytics tech to new markets across the globe.