Josh

Over the last few months, Alice Springs Airport staff in Northern Australia have noticed an increase in illegal drone flights as a result of COIVD grounding a large fleet of aircraft at the airport. It makes for interesting but illegal and dangerous aerial photos.

An experimental drone has managed to stay in the air for an impressive 3.5 hours thanks to a hydrogen fuel cell developed by a team at the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands. The verticle take-off and landing (VTOL) drone uses a total of 12 motors.

Counter-drone company DroneShield has announced that it has received an R&D contract from a Five Eyes (FVEY) country to further develop its AI and ML algorithms. The new contract will see the company improve its algorithms with the extra cash until mid-2021.

Today at the World of Drones Congress virtual event, Wing Aviation announced a few changes and new features for its OpenSky drone safety app. The changes include additional no-fly zones around active fires and flight cautions in national parks.

Over the next few months, medical delivery drones will take flight in the Netherlands between two hospitals to deliver emergency medicines, blood, and other time-sensitive samples. The drones will be flying between the Isala Diaconessenhuis Meppel hospital and the Isala Ziekenhuis hospital.

Hey DJI Mini 2 owners, DJI wants you to share some feedback on your recent drone purchase so it can improve its future products and better suit them to you and other customers. The survey is available right now in the DJI Fly app.

The DJI Mavic Air 2 has received its latest update, adding a slew of new features to make piloting the drone even easier. The update adds multi-drone support to the controller, quieting down the startup and optimizing various other features of the drone.

Counter drone company D-Fend Solutions has opened its first North American office in McLean, Virginia, to expand its operations and meet the increasing demand for counter-drone products and solutions.

Chinese drone company EHang has taken to the sky in South Korea in its latest test, delivering rice before it moves on to human passengers. The test took place in the South Korean capital, Seoul, as a part of its goal to get drones flying by 2025.

Scientists have turned to drones to speed up the counting process undertaken to track Antarctic penguins’ numbers. The drones have cut down the counting time from two full days to just three hours, amazing!

The AlarisPro platform has received a few new features to support FAA reporting and data collection to make life easier for drone pilots and drone fleet management. The update puts the AlarisPro ahead of the FAA’s requirements for drone platforms.

Counter-drone company Citadel Defense has announced its new AI-powered drone threat detection software for its Titan drone defense systems. Citadel has been working on its AI platform for the last 27 months with successful deployments across multiple combatant commands and hundreds of unique environments.

DJI recently released its folding DJI RSC 2 gimbal with some impressive upgrades over the original Ronin SC. Let’s take a look and see what all the fuss is about. DJI released the DJI RSC 2 on October 31 alongside the larger RS 2.

Next week is National Drone Safety Awareness Week! It’s a week full of educational programming focusing on the safe operation of drones. The event is run by a public-private partnership called Know Before You Fly and will collaborate with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

An infantry unit in the U.S. Army‘s XVIII Airborne Corps will be testing out drone supply drops for the first time in tests that will take place next year. The exact unit receiving the unmanned drops is unknown, likely to keep the soldiers’ and drones’ security intact.

DroneShield has partnered with the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) to produce the next generation of drone detection technology. The partnership has been funded by the New South Wales government to track threats with a convolutional neural network (CNN).

DJI has just released the DJI Agras T20 to the world with a 20-liter tank, improved spraying capabilities, and an omnidirectional radar for 360-degree scans. Last month we saw the T20 hit the FCC database along with the omnidirectional radar.

Drone Delivery Canada has announced two new board members and new hires to solidify its presence in the commercial drone world. The company has welcomed five new additions with a wide variety of industry knowledge and experience.

Turkey has announced that its military forces will use cargo drones for its logistics needs, with production estimated to start in 2021. The move to drones is a part of a greater effort for the Turkish Military to utilize them more.

Aerodyne Japan has partnered with the Autonomous Control Systems Laboratory (ACSL) to develop level 4 autonomy infrastructure for commercial drones. The two will be working together to get a headstart in autonomy, focusing on the ASEAN region.

The British government has set aside £33 million (~$43 million) in funding to be spent on firefighting and COVID delivery drones as a part of a ground-breaking aviation project to solve major global challenges. So far, 20 winning ideas have been funded by the UK government.