drone services

Diversified drone hardware and services company Volatus Aerospace is expanding on what had already been a steady stream of new business contracts in its domestic Canadian market with a deal in the US worth up to $60 million providing aerial infrastructure inspections for a major utility firm.

Swiss warehouse and logistics drone services company Verity has gotten a boost in its international scaling ambitions with a new financial infusion increasing its earlier $32 million Series B funding round by nearly 30%.

The Biden White House has released a policy report on its priorities for developing new aviation technologies, like electric vertical takeoff and landing planes (eVTOL), autonomous drone services, air taxis, and other forms of advanced air mobility (AAM) to preserve what it says is US leadership in the aeronautical sector, “made possible by American ingenuity and bolstered by the federal government.”

Flyability, the Swiss company producing indoor drones for a variety of enterprise and industrial applications, says it will now make radiation detection and measurement meters by Mirion Technologies available aboard its Elios 3 UAVs for customers in nuclear activities.

Malaysian drone data, tech, and transmission company Aerodyne Group is continuing its push to claim the title as the world’s largest UAV service provider with today’s acquisition of Italy’s Aiviewgroup.

UK companies BT and unified traffic management (UTM) specialist Altitude Angel have struck a deal, combining their work building the nation’s 165-mile drone superhighway based on an agreement that gives the telecom giant an equity stake in the start-up.

Aerial strategy and infrastructure specialist DronePort Network has formed a partnership with Osage LLC to develop and manage the large, multi-purpose Skyway 36 aviation facility, whose use by fixed-wing planes, drones, and next-generation passenger craft will be the cornerstone of the Tulsa Regional Advanced Mobility project (TRAM).

Leading drone data, tech, and transmission group Aerodyne is continuing to expand its presence in the rapidly growing Latin America market by taking a controlling stake in Brazilian UAV service company Grupo DR1.

If aerial activity tracks changes in how societies are modifying funeral services, the demand for drone pilots qualified to scatter cremation ashes from on high may soon rise, as developments in the UK seem to suggest.

Leading drone services and advanced air mobility (AAM) vertiport developer Skyports says it has received over $3 million in additional capital from Singapore-based ST Engineering, lifting the total of its now-closed Series B funding round to $26.13 million.

UAV sensor specialist Censys Technologies has closed an over-subscribed Series A Funding round that generated $8.3 million ­– capital the company will use to accelerate its transformation from a drone services company to a provider of what it calls airborne intelligence.

If a single person were to be designed the “Drone Meister” of US government aerial operations, it might well be Mark Bathrick – the recently retired director of the Department of the Interior’s Office of Aviation Services (OAS), who assembled and oversaw the increasingly diversified use of the world’s largest fleet of non-military UAS. Creator of the agency’s “Drones for Good” program, Bathrick spoke to DroneDJ about how those operations evolved over the past two decades and how it’s likely to continue in the future.

Verizon Robotics, the automation and machine development unit of the global communications giant, has said it will expand its testing and proof-of-concept capabilities by basing those activities at Oregon’s drone and aerial tech trial facility, Pendleton Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Range.

Convergence in the high-end mapping and 3D-modeling drone services segment is afoot with the acquisition of LiDAR tech specialist GeoCue by the mdGroup, owner of Germany-based Microdrones.

Malaysia-based drone services company Aerodyne Group is seeking to extend its recent run of success through a new partnership with Norway’s robotic and drone tech specialist Astralution, in an effort to generate new clients from Scandinavia’s energy sector.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has taken another stride toward the routine use of drones for passenger aircraft inspection. It’s transforming its previously exploratory relationship with UAV service provider Mainblades into a multi-year partnership that aims to develop the automated process into a regular part of airline maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) activity.

Some stories provide great examples of “drones for good” activity. This one might be described more as “drones for God.” A small village in the southwest of France this week deployed a drone to clean the façade, roof, and bell tower of its church in a mission usually carried out by scaffolding-perched workers. The time and costs saved in that were nothing short of miraculous.

Drones are set to fly new missions over Pacific atolls, aiming to replicate their coup in the Galápagos archipelago earlier this year by eradicating invasive rats endangering the survival of indigenous wildlife. Topping that list of creatures the flights seek to protect are majestic green sea turtles, whose nests are raided by the voracious rodents.