DroneDJ

Significant job losses are expected at leading autonomous drone inspection company American Robotics, as its Ondas Holdings owner prepares to integrate the activities of soon-to-be-acquired Israeli firm Airobotics.

For hundreds and thousands of people in the United States, 2022 was the year commercial drone delivery finally became a reality. Walmart expanded its drone delivery operations to 36 hubs spread across Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. Alphabet’s Wing began delivering to Texas’ Dallas-Fort Worth area. Heck, even Amazon‘s drone delivery program finally took off in a couple of cities in California and Texas before the year came to a close.

Step aside, Mickey and Pluto: Disneyland Paris is about to fill its evening sky with Marvel characters during its “Avengers: Power the Night” drone show – part of its yearlong celebration of the park’s 30^th year anniversary.

Cargo drone developer Elroy Air says it has secured the purchase at least 20 of its Chaparral autonomous planes from aircraft and helicopter leasing company LCI, raising the total value of its order book to over $2 billion, according to the company.

A glitch in the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system today has led to all flights across the US being grounded until at least 9 a.m. EST. But that’s just one part of the picture. NOTAMs affect every user of the national airspace. And this includes drone pilots.

Canadian drone hardware and services company Volatus has kept its 2022 business expansion roll progressing in the opening weeks of the new year, most recently in revealing its worldwide, multi-functional partnership with German UAV producer Airial Robotics.

As developers of air taxis and other advanced air mobility (AAM) craft move closer to certification and launch of services, efforts by national regulators to coordinate standards and operating rules have gained momentum ­– most recently with an agreement between the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the South Korea Office of Civil Aviation (KOCA) to cooperate as rollouts near.

SkyeBrowse, whose reality capture platform allows DJI and Autel users to create accurate 3D models at the press of a button, is looking for drone pilots to test its new software. Read on, because it’s a paid gig.

It’s a new year, so we are destined to get new drones, gimbals, and cameras from DJI this year. Leaker DealsDrone is back with another calendar showing his guess for what products DJI could release in 2023.

A pair of innovative European aviation companies have partnered up to earn a chance to develop a very heavy-lift drone for the UK’s Royal Navy – a craft the duo says will carry supply payloads of up to 700 kilograms to offshore ships.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed new rules to promote access to licensed radio spectrum by drone operators.

Maker of avionics tech for drones and other aircraft, uAvionix has received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to perform beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights within North Dakota’s Vantis UAV network. 

A man in the UK is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty this week to having endangered a World War II-era Royal Air Force plane by flying his drone near the craft during an historic airshow event last July.

Canadian diversified drone hardware and services company Volatus says it has secured a year-long contract in the UK to perform aerial monitoring of water treatment facilities for leaks of methane gas – a major contributor to global warming.

Nottinghamshire Police in the UK say 2022 was the busiest year to date for its drone operators, with more deployments, arrests, and interventions than ever before.

Ground-breaking autonomous drone systems developer Percepto says it has attained another unprecedented Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) authorization, this time for its nested UAVs to be used at a solar power plant in Texas to perform highly automated inspections at high altitudes.

Between the fanfare of initial announcements of intent, network planning, testing, regulatory approval, community consultation, and recurring teasers of looming launches, it can be a little difficult keeping current on the actual state of play in drone delivery activity – a haziness Walmart is now endeavoring to dissipate.

Designer and manufacturer of security and defense drones, Teal, says it has signed an agreement to use sensors produced by Canadian optical products specialist Immervision to provide its UAVs with low-light vision capabilities for aerial data collection operations.

In a first, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has approved the use of a drone-based solution to detect methane leaks at municipal solid waste landfill sites.

Airspace security specialist Dedrone is again moving to expand its business to keep pace with growing US and international demand for UAV detection and mitigation solutions with its acquisition of Arizona’s drone detection company Aerial Armor.

The latest from CES 2023 is that Mitsubishi Electric is putting together a drone-based logistics operations management platform called AnyMile. This open marketplace, we are told, will bring together shippers, drone manufacturers, drone operators, and ancillary service providers onto a single platform, allowing them to easily schedule and manage cargo deliveries via drones.

Today at CES, Autel announced its newest drone to its lineup with the EVO Max 4T – a compact drone with a thermal zoom camera and a range finder all in one package for first responders.