Drones for good

The Texas city of Arlington is preparing to launch a trial using drones and robotic ground vehicles to deliver packages from a local food bank to recipient homes in a bid to reduce the number of vans – and emissions those produce – in transporting the vital parcels where they’re needed.

As part of the effort to strengthen its domestic UAV production for defensive deployment against Russia’s continuing invasion, Ukraine is testing a drone specially developed to accelerate and improve the detection and elimination of deadly landmines.

A group of Washington state startup executives is pooling the experience and knowledge of overlapping backgrounds to turn their Data Blanket creation into an effective and powerful tool for the firefighters increasingly called out to battle raging blazes blackening multiplying areas of the planet.

Activity by US drone operators were critical in saving a trio of lives in recent days, including a youth in Colorado’s whose DJI craft spotted an otherwise hidden vehicle flipped in a sinkhole over the weekend.

California heavy-lift UAV startup Parallel Flight Technologies has repeatedly demonstrated a desire to harness its boundary-pushing development of drone technology to objectives benefiting people and the planet – the most recent example being its new partnership with environmental NGO Island Conservation to preserve native flora and fauna under threat of extinction from invasive predators.

Specialized heavy-lift drone producer Parallel Flight Technologies has been tapped by USDA Wildlife Services to adapt its Firefly UAV developed to assist firefighters for a natural wildlife preservation project aiming to eradicate a destructive population of invasive rats on Wake Island.

When DroneDJ last visited Phil James in 2021, the former police officer had focused his passion for piloting drones into looking for lost dogs in his Nottinghamshire, UK, homebase and reuniting them with their owners – work that by April of that year had resulting in 47 of those happy endings. Cut to March 2023, and James’s aerial efforts have increased that joyful total to nearly 1,400.

Swedish startup Everdrone has gotten the all-clear to extend its life-saving First on Scene Solutions activity using drones to speed automated external defibrillators (AED) and provide other support to first responders in Sweden’s vast Västra Götaland county.

Wildlife officials in Washington state are set to deploy drones over a large expanse of preserved space as part of their annual effort to estimate the population of the nearly extinct Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits.

Innovating botanists in Hawaii are again adapting tech loaded on drones to preserve native plants from extinction in areas too remote or dangerous for humans to access – this time on Hawaii Island to battle Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death (ROD) fungus killing indigenous ʻōhiʻa lehua trees.

Canadian drone hardware manufacturer and diversified service company Draganfly has announced it has been tapped by Ukraine aerial solutions specialist DEF-C to provide support for its work with civil and defense clients – and supply those customers with 30 reconnaissance UAVs.

Tampa Bay drone and robotic services company FLYMOTION has joined the expanding list of homegrown and national businesses and emergency responder organizations now hard at work to locate and care for survivors, and assist large areas of southwest Florida start recovering from the devastating passage of Hurricane Ian.

A research project experimenting with drones to identify overexerted athletes in states of distress turned into a real-life emergency medical response operation last weekend, when UAVs deployed to monitor the Montréal Marathon spotted an exhausted runner collapsing.

European UAV research and innovation organization AiRMOUR has launched a series of tests using drones – including an EHang air taxi – to substantiate the potential advantages of the craft in responding to life-threatening medical emergencies.

Botanical researchers on the island of Kauai have teamed up with engineers in Quebec’s University of Sherbrooke to create a robotic arm flown by drone to collect rare flora in difficult or impossible-to -access spots for humans as part of their efforts to preserve endangered plants for centuries to come.

Specialized UAV consulting firm Skyfire has formed a partnership with drone management and collaboration software specialist DroneSense to offer public safety agencies a range of packages designed to facilitate the launch of first responder small craft programs.

Specialized security and tactical drone manufacturer BRINC has launched its Global Rescue Network, which will assist and support humanitarian efforts and disaster response wherever they arise around the world.

Score another drones-for-good point for Australia’s UAV and geospatial education provider SheMaps, whose aerial tech introduction and training have led a young Queensland woman to take to the skies in an effort to safeguard the history of the Aboriginal Koko-Muluridji people’s Wallara clan.

A pair of ground-breaking startups are pooling their tech capacities, hardware, and experience in an effort to develop drones specially designed for deployment by firefighters, using heat resistant materials and 3D printing power to speed production and lower costs.

Drone service companies Skyports and Swoop Aero are extending their past partnerships to Kenya, where they’ve teamed up with local UAV operator Astral Aerial Solutions in a series of the nation’s first beyond line of sight (BVLOS) delivery trials to prepare for regular transport of medical supplies.

The killer whale whose deteriorating health in the fresh waters of the Seine River led officials in Normandy to deploy a drone in their efforts to lure it back to sea. The whale has been euthanized after it was determined the creature’s state had declined too greatly to survive.