AirHub and Mapture.ai have partnered up to create a drone-in-a-box that can autonomously launch, land, and be controlled from a remote location. The solution means a skilled drone pilot is no longer required with all pre-flight checks being automated.

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Researchers at Facebook and the University of California, Berkeley, published a new paper showing how a drone can use AI to learn to handle different delivery payloads under changing conditions. The work could come in handy as drones increasingly operate in tight spaces such as warehouses or industrial sites. expand full story

UAV company UAVOS has managed to convert a Robinson R22 manned helicopter into an autonomous cargo drone, capable of flying over 1000km. The UVH R22 is capable of carrying 400 pounds of cargo, agricultural monitoring, and video surveillance, just to name a few.

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FlytBase has teamed up with IAG Cargo to pilot autonomous drones usage in its Madrid-based warehouse. The pilot program is hoping to test and make any adjustments to the hardware and software before the program is rolled out to all of IAG Cargo’s warehouses, and possibly to the rest of the warehouses owned by IAG Cargo’s sister company, British Airways.

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GET (Global Energy Transmission), a US C-corporation with an engineering center in Russia has developed an inductive charging system that powers up drone batteries mid-flight, allowing them to stay in the air for an indefinite amount of time. Although this appears to be in the early stages of development, it works really well delivering 25 minutes of flight in 6 minutes.

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Any drone pilot knows that navigating through tight spaces is tough. Consumer grade drones developed by companies like Skydio and DJI now have the sensors and software that make it possible for their aircraft to dodge obstacles while following a subject, but the team behind the GapFlyt project is upping the ante.

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