CES 2018

One million drones have been registered with the FAA as of this week, announced Elaine Chao, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation at CES 2018. This figure includes 878,000 hobbyists. Hobbyist drone pilots receive one registration number for all the drones that they own. Then there are also 122,000 commercial, public, and other drones that are individually registered.

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Good morning. After a busy week of covering CES 2018, it is now Friday the last day of the event in Las Vegas. We did our best to cover the entire event for you.

Some of the highlights as far as I am concerned are; the Tello toy drone from DJI and Intel, for $99 that seems like the ideal beginner drone. The UVify Oori micro race drone. Very excited to get our hands on that one. For photographers and videographers, one of the highlights must be the new Yuneec Typhoon H Plus drone with a one-inch 20-megapixel sensor and a “large-aperture” lens.

Another exciting part of CES this year was the development of passenger or taxi drones. Unfortunately, Workhorse’s Surefly test flight was canceled. That really was too bad. I would have loved to see that. Hopefully, they can have another go at it soon? Volocopter completed its indoor ‘cage-flight’, which was awesome. Lastly, of course, we had the Uber/Bell Helicopter simulator. Less exciting perhaps but still good to see that Bell is involved in developing a passenger drone. The next few years should be exciting as these taxi drones become a reality.

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The PowerDolphin underwater drone does it all! The underwater unmanned vehicle was introduced at CES 2018 this week. PowerVision, the company behind the underwater drone, calls the PowerDolphin, a lifestyle robot that will precision drop bait for you and catch fish for you, map the ocean floor, deliver lifesaving equipment to people in need.

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AEE Aviation Technology Inc. and SELFLY Camera LLC have partnered to launch the Selfly, a smartphone case, and drone in one. While the drone-case will not fly with the smartphone still attached, the idea is that you carry your phone, and thus your drone, with you at all times, allowing you to take selfies from new heights and angles. The Selfly was announced at CES 2018.

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Yamaha makes a lot more than motorbikes, outboard engines, and watercrafts. Apparently, they make drones now as well. At CES 2018, they were showing off a new drone, the YMR-01, for pesticide application in the agricultural industry. Since the nineties, Yamaha had been using the R-Max remote helicopter to do the same but a drone should be easier to fly and therefore offer a larger market for Yamaha to cater to.

The Yamaha YMR-01 features an interesting rotor design with six arms but eight rotors. The double rotors in the middle are called“vertical coaxial” rotors. Yamaha states that the design of the drone is to create the most effective downward air currents for optimal application of pesticides. Smart.

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A little rain canceled the Workhorse Surefly taxi drone flight because the aircraft is not waterproof. After receiving approval from the FAA, the passenger drone was supposed to make its maiden flight on Monday, but it stayed grounded because of safety concerns. The cool Nevada air with some mild drizzle proved to be too much for the aircraft that is supposed to be the future of commuting. What a bummer.

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During the CES 2018 event in Las Vegas, the Volocopter 2X, an 18-rotor air taxi drone, made its debut flight. Volocopter works closely together with Intel and after the tech giant completed their keynote presentation, the taxi drone to make its short first flight over the stage. Granted it was a very short flight but the first, nonetheless for Volocopter in North America.

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Intel has been showing off its skills in flying swarms of drone yet again. We all have seen their drone show at the Bellagio. Now Intel has taken one hundred tiny drones, that flew as a group, in a coordinated fashion over the crowds, without GPS, inside. If that sounds impressive, well, that is because it is.

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Seagate just announced the LaCie 2TB DJI CoPilot, a portable external hard drive specifically designed for drone pilots when they are out in the field. According to Seagate, 2TB should be enough for about 65 hours of 4K video footage at 30fps or around 20,000 RAW photos.

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Last year at CES, UVify introduced the Draco racing drone. This year they are introducing the Oori, a 60MPH micro racing drone. The Oori is much smaller and lighter than the Dacro quadcopter. In fact, it is so small it easily fits in the palm of your hand. The small form factor promises very fast and agile flying ability. The Oori is aimed both at beginning drone pilots as well as speed addicts. According to UVify the Oori is very easy to fly and can be flown safely indoors with the use of the lock-on, pop-off propeller protectors.

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Good morning! Sorry, technical error today. I guess I need another cup of coffee this time. Anyway here’s the news!

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A company by the name of Autel Robotics unveiled a new drone at CES 2018, and this one looks like it’s one of the more serious new entries to come out of the Las Vegas show (no offense, HighGreat and Kudrone). After laying off its US sales and marketing staff this time last year, Autel is back at it with a new quadcopter that’s set to go on sale sometime in the next several months: the Evo.

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Kudrone, a Chinese drone maker that you probably haven’t heard of, quietly announced a brand-new second generation drone at CES 2018 called the Kudrone V. The company said that the CES show floor, today, is the first time that the drone has been shown publicly.
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While drone-related DJI announcements are nowhere to be seen this week, the Chinese drone company did announce the 2nd generation of its OSMO Mobile gimbal. We got a chance to play with one on the show floor, and we grabbed a first look at one using a smartphone that was docked in one.

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Yuneec introduced three new drones at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The first one, and possibly the most important one, is the Typhoon H Plus, a successor to the Typhoon H that was launched in 2016. Besides the Typhoon H Plus, Yuneec also launched a fixed-wing drone, named the Yuneec Fixed Wing Firebird FPV. Lastly, they also introduced a new budget-friendly HD racer, a first for Yuneec.

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We wanted to provide you with an up to date summary of all the drone companies that are present at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. From the 9to5mac group, we have five people walking the floor of the event to talk to manufacturers and get the latest drone news. Everything that is newsworthy will be posted here on DroneDJ.

This post will be updated as the show continues. Latest update is from 1/11/18 @ 6:10 pm EST.

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We have seen Intel’s ‘Shooting Star’ drones in action before during the Super Bowl, now we are seeing them at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

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The new DJI OSMO Mobile 2 has been the big news from the famed Chinese drone maker this week, but DJI isn’t the only company releasing new handheld camera stabilizers. One similar product being shown off at CES is dubbed the Removu K1, and it tries to differentiate itself with a small display for making sure you’re always getting the perfect shot.

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Fortem is one of many drone startups showcasing their products and platforms at CES 2018, and they’re an interesting one indeed. Fortem has announced a new radar system for drones called the TrueView R20, which it hopes will make autonomous out-of-sight drone flying a reality.

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Shenzhen-based HighGreat is showing off a couple new drones at CES 2018 this week, both of which target the middle-to-low end of the consumer drone market — which is currently dominated by DJI with its Mavic and Spark. The drones go by the names “Mark” and “Hesper”, respectively,  and both fold up a la the Mavic, making them portable, light, and easy to carry.

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We just learned that Ryze Tech a Chinese startup company will be announcing a $99 toy drone, called Tello, with technology inside from both Intel and DJI. The affordable toy drone is able to capture 360-degree video and live stream the footage to a tablet. The drone is targetted at a young audience, i.e. kids and should be very safe and easy to fly using an Intel vision processing chip and flight stabilization from DJI. It will offer features such as automatic take-off and landing.

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