Ishveena Singh

The UK Department of Transport has just released a report that details how a police officer lost control of his DJI Matrice 210 (M210) V1 drone before it crashed into the first-floor balcony of a house. Although no one was hurt, the report warns that “people could have been seriously injured by the propeller blades” if the balcony had been occupied.

Gremsy, one of the most popular developers of camera gimbal stabilizers for drones, is launching a new product for open drone ecosystems. The Vietnamese gimbal manufacturer recently joined forces with autonomous mobility platform Auterion. And the result is Gremsy PE: a gimbal series that has been purpose-built for an effortless integration with Auterion and MAVLink compliant drones.

Counter-drone specialist DroneShield is joining forces with location intelligence firm Nearmap to make its DroneSentry-C2 Command-and-Control software more precise than ever. An upgrade adds a layer of high-resolution aerial imagery to DroneShield’s existing mapping service, so users have more precise information while responding to drone threats.

After achieving similar feats in the United States, Australia, and Israel, drone-in-a-box solutions provider Percepto has received its first Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) waiver under the new European drone regulations. This waiver for Percepto drones comes from the Dutch civil aviation authority (ILT), while Germany and Belgium are expected to follow suit.

The FAA has granted Iris Automation a second waiver for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) autonomous drone operations on behalf of the City of Reno. But while the previous waiver required the use of Iris Automation’s advanced detect and avoid solution Casia X, this one utilizes the company’s Casia G ground-based solution (pictured above).

Autel Robotics’ Dragonfish Lite and Pro drones are finally available in the US. The new drones join the standard version of the Dragonfish VTOL, providing enterprise pilots with multiple endurance options that suit diverse budgets.

Israel-based autonomous drone software company vHive has scooped up $25 million in Series B funding to digitize enterprise assets and expand operations globally. vHive’s drone-agnostic solution enables readily-available commercial, off-the-shelf drones to follow flight paths autonomously and inspect field assets, such as cell towers, with uncanny precision to build accurate digital twins.

After reviewing over 800 stunning entries, the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has announced four winners for its drone photography competition: #ShotOnMyDrone. Here are the amazing drone photos that showcase the beautiful towns, cities, and countryside of the UK in all their glory.

Switzerland-based INVOLI has announced the availability of a new 4G drone tracking device, LEMAN RemoteID. Compatible with Remote ID requirements set by aviation authorities in both the United States and Europe, the INVOLI drone tracker comes with its own GPS and battery to broadcast drone information directly over a Wi-Fi frequency (Remote ID Broadcast) or a 4G network (Network Remote ID).

After weeks of leaks, rumors, and speculations that didn’t give away much, the DJI Mini 3 hype train is finally gaining momentum with new photos and videos of the highly-awaited drone showing up online Saturday. Interestingly, the drone shown in the video appears to have been activated in early March – indicating that DJI has been officially testing the product for at least a month and that its release date could be imminent.

The DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced (M2EA) drone has received its latest firmware update, complete with new capabilities for mission flights and a ton of neat improvements.

So, it’s that time of the year again when pretty much all your favorite brands are out to get you. Drone companies are no different, and they’ve prepared a diverse array of refreshing gags to give us a laugh today. Head below to see our roundup of the best April Fools’ Day 2022 pranks from drone brands.

Wingcopter says it’s teaming up with German Airways to explore the use of drones in the delivery of spare parts to offshore wind farms. This development comes days after two Singapore-based firms announced their plans to produce offshore wind farm delivery drones that would operate at 90% lower costs than current methods that involve the use of boats or helicopters.

FedEx says it is joining forces with California-based eVTOL cargo drone manufacturer Elroy Air to explore autonomous solutions within its middle-mile delivery operations. As part of this agreement, FedEx subsidiary FedEx Express will begin testing Elroy Air’s recently announced Chaparral cargo drone in 2023.

DJI is rolling out a new firmware version for the Phantom 4 RTK drone today. This is the second firmware update for the tech giant’s most compact and accurate low-altitude mapping solution this year. Head below for details on what’s new and how to update the firmware on your drone.

Autel Robotics has released a new firmware update for its EVO Nano and EVO Lite series drones, and this one includes several new features and improvements. While some new capabilities such as Dynamic Track 2.1, 8-bit Log video, and HDR video are being made available for selected models, others features like SuperDownload would benefit all EVO Lite, Lite+, Nano, and Nano+ series drones.

Wingcopter, an eVTOL manufacturer and drone delivery service provider based out of Germany, has finally roped in ITOCHU, one of the largest general trading companies (sogo shosha) in Japan, as a strategic investor and authorized partner. Wingcopter first hinted at this partnership in December 2021, when it announced an investment from Drone Fund, a Japan-based venture capital firm dedicated exclusively to the drone technology ecosystem.

Treeswift, a Philadelphia-based startup that has spun out of the University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP Laboratory, has secured $4.8 million in seed funding to build a drone-based forest monitoring system.

Last weekend, one of Europe’s top consumer electronics chains, MediaMarkt, decided to stop the sales of DJI drones amid allegations that the Chinese company was supporting Russian aggression against Ukraine. While DJI promptly dismissed those claims as “utterly false” on social media Friday, the tech giant has now released a statement explaining that its business partner was forced to remove DJI products from its shelves for security reasons as it had become a target of online attacks.

Like other tech companies, DJI also gets its products into the hands of “real users” before they are launched officially. One such beta tester for the newly announced Matrice 30 enterprise drone was the Weber County Search and Rescue – a volunteer organization assigned to assist the Weber County Sheriff’s Office in the state of Utah. Incredibly enough, the SAR team was able to witness the lifesaving capabilities of the DJI M30 drone firsthand when a snowboarder became stranded in North Fork mountain valley land.

Skydio’s autonomous drones, coupled with the company’s very capable Skydio 3D Scan software, can carry out complicated asset inspections with robotic precision, without any human intervention. And now, to improve this inspection process even further, Skydio is joining forces with Texas-based Optelos visual data management and AI analysis platform.