autonomous operation

Human-machine collab specialist XTEND says it has acquired Performance Rotors, a Singapore-based drone inspection firm. The collective technologies of these companies will make human-guided, remote interactive operations possible in a range of industrial inspection scenarios, including GPS-denied, unsafe, or confined spaces.

Google’s corporate cousin Wing Aviation has repeatedly innovated its methods of organizing and operating UAV transport of ordered goods between retailers and customers. Now it’s taking that to another level by devising reactive, pragmatic, and automated networks of delivery drones whose flexibility and increased efficiencies are what the company thinks will be key to massively scaling the activity.

Enterprise drone automation software specialist FlytBase has announced the second edition of NestGen, a global virtual summit that puts the spotlight on the latest drone-in-a-box tech and solutions enabling drone autonomy.

American Robotics has been granted a new exemption by the FAA which enables the company to not only operate its autonomous Scout drone system for research, development, crew training, and market surveys, but also for full-scale commercial operations.

Walmart-backed drone delivery operator DroneUp is joining forces with Israel-based FlightOps to scale up its operations and fly multiple drones in shared airspace from anywhere on the globe.

Autonomous drone charging station hardware manufacturer Heisha has launched its smallest drone dock yet, the D50. The new drone-in-a-box solution is compatible with a wide variety of aircraft that use 2S-4S batteries, such as the DJI Mavic and Phantom drones as well as Autel, Skydio, and Parrot products.

In a first for Japan, renewable energy firm afterFIT has received approval to fly autonomous drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) at night. The approval has been granted by the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism.

There’s no question that the brains inside Skydio drones are rather impressive. These things are masters of AI and autonomy, capable of carrying out tasks that can prove challenging for other drones. The team, naturally, knows everything there’s to know about building autonomous robots at scale. And now, it’s ready to share its learnings with the wider robotics community by making public SymForce – the library that powers the motion planner and computer vision systems used by Skydio drones.

Parrot says its new ANAFI Ai 4G drone will be accessible from the cloud for mission planning, real-time video streaming, and fully remote management of the fleet. This capability is being enabled through the joint efforts of the drone maker and French software company UAVIA.

Autonomous vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drone manufacturer Volansi has unveiled its new VOLY 50 series of UAVs designed for long-haul transport of flexible payloads.

It’s not a drone, but its University of California Riverside inventors say it is robotic: a film powered by light, capable of being configured to soak up oil spills in the ocean or contaminating liquids from freshwater supplies. It’s therefore non-dronishly cool enough to write about here.

Abu Dhabi is hosting a global competition with a prize pot of more than $3 million to challenge innovators from all over the world to design autonomous drone systems for maritime safety and security.

Searching for solutions to the morale-sapping effects that long, boring, or even dangerous missions can have on its sailors, US Naval authorities are testing uncrewed, automated marine drones to sail themselves. And their most recent results with those have been doozies.