Sean Captain is a Bay Area technology, science, and policy journalist. Follow him on Twitter @SeanCaptain.
Public service drones have entered the popular consciousness as they are deployed more and more in the COVID-19 response. But local government agencies like police and fire departments have already been using drones to scout dangerous situations before sending people in. California-based drone maker Skydio has just launched a program to donate free drones for these operations.
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At the start of the week, the city of Westport, Connecticut, began testing a “pandemic drone” designed to detect signs of illness in crowds. By Wednesday, protesters were out to oppose the drone for invading their privacy. And by Thursday, the city had pulled out of the program.
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The Federal Aviation Administration is a very conservative organization, and rules for commercial drones are strict. But the agency does have a mechanism for issuing waivers to these rules. And it appears that the FAA has finally issued its first COVID-19 drone waiver.
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The hottest drone of 2020 is about to hit the market. DJI has been dropping hints for a while now that a new Mavic Air 2 is coming. It’s even given the launch day and time: April 27 at 9:30 p.m. EDT. Now it’s offering two puzzle sleuths the chance to win their very own drone worth $799.
The coronavirus might be keeping drone flyers inside lately, but it’s not keeping drone makers from bringing out new products. At least it’s not stopping world-leading drone maker DJI. A series of leaks, test reports from the FCC, and a not-too-subtle tweet from the company itself all point to the imminent release of its latest drone, the Mavic Air 2, this month.
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What’s been a slow rollout of drone delivery programs in the US has just sped up in the COVID-19 era. The North Carolina Department of Transportation just announced test programs with three leading companies in the nascent drone delivery industry.
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The DJI Mavic Air 2 is becoming the worst-kept secret in the drone world. We already know a lot of the specs, thanks to documents made public by the FCC and Brazil’s communications agency. But we were missing one important number: the price. Now we know it’s $799 — a $120 price drop from its predecessor’s original retail price. And boy does this drone look hot…
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COVID-19 is pushing health systems beyond their limits. To cope with the problem, health agencies are rapidly building new emergency facilities to handle the overflow. In Argentina, authorities turned to drones to quickly survey sites for a dozen modular hospitals across the country.
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The Chilean beach town of Zapallar is famous for the palatial homes of the country’s rich and famous dotting its coastline. But in the interior, it’s a low-income community with poor infrastructure. Now the town is using drones to help cut travel times for delivering medical supplies and to support social distancing.
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In real life, you won’t see a unicorn fart a rainbow. But it you’re at just the right angle, you can see a whale blow one. And a drone is the best way to get that angle.
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The first officer on the scene might be a drone pilot. Cities in California are utilizing police drones as the “first responder” on some calls. The goal is to get eyes on a scene as soon as possible, for instance to track suspects fleeing a crime.
Professional drone flying in the US finally went legit in August 2016. That’s when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued what’s known as Part 107, the rules for flying small unmanned vehicles (55 pounds or less) for business.
Two weeks ago, the world was stunned by drone photos and videos of mass burials of COVID-19 victims on an island that is part of the Bronx, in New York City. Last week, renowned photographer George Steinmetz set out to capture his own images, but police seized his drone. And now we have more details of how that went down.
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Like seemingly everything else in America, COVID-19 has become a political issue. And politics has now extended to the use of drones in the fight against the coronavirus.
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Zipline has long been the model for drone delivery services. And it’s been setting the example in Africa, first in Rwanda, and then in Ghana. Zipline set another milestone on April 17, with the first drone delivery of COVID-19 medical test samples.
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Even with an economic lockdown, April is turning out to be a good month for drone debuts. In addition to DJI’s Mavic Air 2 launch on the 27th, rival Autel is putting its new EVO 2 on sale starting a week earlier, on the 20th, starting at $1,495.
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COVID-19 has changed a lot about civic life in the US — and around the world. Mayors and governors have issued sweeping stay-at-home orders, for instance. But while drones have made headlines with a few prominent deployments, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not altered its strict regulations for the technology.
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California has by far the largest homeless population in the United States, with more than 150,000 unhoused people. They are often pushed out of city centers and into the countryside, making it difficult for public services to reach them. Now the city of Chula Vista in San Diego County is using drones to find those in need.
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While its rate of infections is still quite low, India is getting very aggressive in tackling the new coronavirus. Along with using drones to chase down people who break stay-at-home orders, it’s now developing powerful COVID-19 disinfectant drones to kill the virus.
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The lines between consumer, enterprise, and now military drones continue to blur. This week, French drone maker Parrot announced that it’s in the final stage of competition to provide short range reconnaissance drones to the US Army. Getting to that stage required a lot of assurances for a government wary of foreign drone makers.
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With much of the world under lockdown orders to slow the spread of COVID-19, we’ve seen drones play a bigger and bigger enforcement role. Indian authorities have been among the most aggressive in the world recruiting drones to enforce COVID-19 lockdowns.
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When you hear “delivery drone,” you probably think of a quadcopter lugging six or eight pounds across a handful of miles. But Drone Delivery Canada is testing a much bigger bird. It can haul 400 pounds of cargo up to 124 miles.
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DJI has issued firmware updates for the components of its first-person-view (FPV) system that allows users to attach an external display to the controller. It also teases a future update that will provide a higher-quality 50Mb/second video signal.
US Attorney General William Barr issued guidelines today for how federal agencies may monitor and even take out drones that threaten US security. He was acting under the authority of a 2018 Congressional action that allows the Departments of Justice and Homeland security to take anti-drone measures.
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