Drone

UK telecoms company BT is testing a powerful new antenna technology that, once mounted on a high-altitude platform station (HAPS) drone, is expected to provide 4G and 5G services of up to 150 Mbps over areas as large as 15,000 square kilometers.

If such a thing can exist in a merciless and escalating military onslaught, the good news out of bomb-rocked Kyiv today is its forces shot down 44 of the Iran-made Shaded-136 drones that Russia launched overnight in its ongoing New Year’s aerial attacks on Ukraine.

Readers of DroneDJ will remember a story published earlier this month about video captured by a Ukraine drone – which later went viral – as it dropped a series of grenades on a Russian soldier lying on his side, who responded by irritably tossing the munitions away before they exploded. Now information has arisen claiming to add details to the story behind the footage.

In another development that – if confirmed – could create more concern for Moscow, Ukraine has said it shot down one of the purportedly formidable suicide drones Russia reportedly bought from Iran to reinforce its dwindling consumer and military-grade UAVs.

In recent years, aerial tech both large and small has been developed and deployed for a rapidly expanding number of uses – from business applications to research, photography to firefighting, leisure flight to warfare. This weekend, a pilot in Northern Ireland city of Belfast took his drone to the sky to capture video of one neighborhood’s annual celebration for posterity – notably, this year’s truly insane “wheelie bin” garbage can race.

The European Union’s main agency for maritime activity is once again deploying drones in partnership with member nations in a common effort to detect and pursue large shipping companies violating tightened limits on sulfur emissions, which are major contributors to global warming.

Among the large number of heroes in the Ukraine’s determination to repel invading Russian armed forces is a mid-size, locally made drone known as the Punisher – something of a weaponized step-up vehicle from consumer craft to the formidable Turkish-built Bayraktar TB2 UAVs also being flown in the country’s defense. As Team Putin might woefully attest, the pint-size Punisher has been living up to its name.

Movie fans have been wowed by images of the Green Goblin cruising the skies on a drone-esque hoverboard. But engineer, inventor, and fearless flight enthusiast Hunter Kowald has made that Marvel-ous ability a reality with his SkySurfer craft, thanks to a never-say-can’t determination to reach his goal that Insta360 features in a new video.

Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a drone whose hinged arms can fold themselves from horizontal to vertical position in order to pass through tight spaces or carry light objects.

The Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research Alliance (NUAIR) says it has gotten approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights over a vastly expanded 35-mile swath of New York’s UAS Test Site drone corridor.

The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is getting creative with its drone development by awarding Phase Two contracts to produce uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUV) that hostile forces might well ignore as nothing more than manta rays. Because that’s just what they’re designed to look like.

California-based drone manufacturer Skydio is giving shoppers who missed the company’s Black Friday mega-sale a second chance by again offering its virtually crash-proof Skydio 2 drone at a steeply reduced $949.

Might processed wood become a power source replacement for lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles like drones and cars? Despite the skepticism of many scientists, one Japanese paper company thinks trees have the potential to do just that.

With only two weeks left before Christmas, DroneDJ figured it was time to make another round of the main sites selling drones and take note of any nice sale prices still to be had. What follows is our best-of list of discounts still out there with only 14 shopping days left.

It’s been nearly a year since the Ring’s Always Home Cam was unveiled at Amazon’s hardware event, and the reasons to love or hate the household security drone have been unrestrainedly shouted ever since. Now consumers are finally getting the chance to adopt the aerial watchdog, and either adore or detest it in their very own abode, sweet abode.

In baseball they call it a “rookie error,” though famously salty-tongued Glaswegians are doubtlessly using other terms to describe it. A new cop in Glasgow’s police force called in for backup last week after somehow mistaking the planet Jupiter as a threateningly pursuing drone.

A police raid in Spain has busted a ring of criminals using a muscled-up drone to transport drugs into Europe. It’s not impossible the suspected organizers in Morocco are lamenting the arrest of their four gang cohorts less than the loss of their impressive craft.

Researchers in China revealed that they have developed an automated underwater drone capable of identifying and attacking enemy craft without human input. The first successful trial of the vessel came a decade ago as part of a program blending robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) dating to the 1990s.

Scientists estimate some 500 meteorites plummet to Earth every year, yet less than 2% of those bodies from space are ever located – usually the larger chunks. Now researchers are seeking to up that count with drones using with artificial intelligence (AI) to distinguish meteorite fragments from regular rocks.

French defense and aerospace group Thales has announced the successful testing of a long-range drone prototype that can fly missions of up to 100 kilometers. The company says the uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) is already compliant with European Special Condition Light Unmanned Aircraft Systems regulations for future drone flights over populated areas.