DroneDJ

It’s been a while since Google’s sister company Wing announced it was bringing a new, retail-based drone delivery system to Texas’s Dallas-Fort Worth area. Let’s take a look at how the company is preparing for the commercial launch of its drone delivery operations…

South Korea’s SK Telecom and electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft specialist Joby Aviation have announced an agreement to develop advanced air mobility (AAM) ride-sharing services between cities across one of southeast Asia’s most promising next-generation transportation markets.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is investigating a drug trafficking incident where a tiny DJI Mini 2 drone was used to smuggle 259g of meth – 10g more than the drone’s own weight – across the US border.

The Bondgate Tower in Northumberland, UK, is a 15th-century monument that is in danger of collapse, and as such, sits on the “Historic England’s Heritage At Risk” register. As part of conservation efforts, the historic gatehouse was recently mapped using a drone, and the results are so incredible, you need to see them for yourself.

Esri Site Scan Flight for ArcGIS, a popular cloud-based drone mapping software, has added support for the DJI Matrice 300 (M300) RTK drone with the Zenmuse P1 photogrammetry camera.

Singapore-based drone technology player H3 Dynamics is joining forces with Sitemark – a specialist AI-analytics company from Belgium – to launch a new robots-as-a-service solution for autonomous solar farm monitoring and inspection.

A project in support of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is pairing sensor-equipped drones with machine-learning applications in an effort to automate the identification and mapping of marine waste and create effective methods for its collection and disposal. 

Skyward drone management platform now supports flight logs from some of DJI’s newest aircraft models, including the Mavic 3, Mavic Air 2, and Air 2S.

After years of anticipation, the drone delivery ecosystem is finally beginning to take shape in many parts of the world. But even as progress is made on the rules and infrastructure side, a singular factor wields the power to dash the hopes of drone deliveries en masse: the weather. Thankfully though, researchers are testing how 5G, mobile edge computing, and artificial intelligence can help drones detect, interpret, and respond to changing weather conditions in real time.

The speed and efficiency of its automated Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC) authorization system has permitted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to issue its millionth permit to drone pilots in record time.

In another example of what a large and growing a problem the use of drones to smuggle contraband into prisons has become, authorities in South Carolina have arrested 20 people – in two different groups – running aerial contraband operations into the Lee Correctional Institution.

Flytrex co-founder and CEO Yariv Bash may not be out to change the entire world, but he is intent on revolutionizing the way goods are delivered on the planet with a tightly focused, carefully defined plan of making drones the primary force of that progress.

Pilot error, accidental damage, loss of data link, flyaways, accidental loss… These are only some of the reasons why Coverdrone customers made drone insurance claims last year. So now, the company, which provides insurance for both commercial and recreational drones, is sharing insights from its claims data to help operators understand the most common risks associated with drone operations.

Your favorite colonel is teaming up with Google’s sister company Wing to satiate those fried chicken hankerings. In about the same amount of time it takes for chicken to crisp up and get its golden hue, people in some parts of Australia will now be able to get their KFC favorites delivered by a drone.

February is proving to be an unpleasant month in the US for the world’s leading manufacturer of UAVs and other consumer tech. Just hours after a news report claimed the privately held DJI has received investments from state entities in China, a quartet of US legislators introduced bills aiming to have the company and its drones added to more federal blacklists.

Legislators in West Virginia are moving to ease laws restricting the use of drones, with the aim of attracting what is currently limited UAV business creation and investment in the state.

South Korean UAV services company PABLO AIR is partnering with operators of New York’s drone corridor, Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research (NUAIR), to develop new kinds of aerial enterprise applications that adhere to US regulatory requirements.

Czech startup Dronetag has developed the small, flat Dronetag Mini transmitter that can be affixed to drones in order to ensure compliance with direct remote ID and network ID regulations being introduced around the globe.

In a series of tests conducted recently in Phoenix, a drone piloted by a Honeywell radar system has emerged triumphant in determining the best flight path and autonomously swerving around an intruder drone that did not have a transponder. This key achievement, the aerospace technology company stresses, will usher in the era of self-flying drones, air taxis, and other advanced air mobility vehicles.

The Mavic 2 Pro and Mavic 2 Zoom ushered in a new era for camera drones when they were first introduced in 2018. DJI has now stopped manufacturing these flying machines in favor of the new Mavic 3. But if you’re one of the many photographers and videographers who agree that the iconic Mavic 2 remains a fantastic way to get pro-level aerial footage, you may want to stock up on a Mavic 2 Fly More Kit before they disappear from the shelves as well.

In a potentially pivotal development in the legal battle between electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) airplane manufacturers Wisk and Archer, federal authorities investigating the underlying accusations of intellectual property theft have decided to end their inquiry into the case. That exit appears to signal vulnerability in Wisk’s charges that its rival misappropriated industrial secrets as the litigation heads to civil trial later this year.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has declared the SoFi Stadium in California’s Inglewood as a “No Drone Zone” ahead of this year’s Super Bowl. And to make sure that drone operators don’t take the safety advisory lightly, a minimum potential fine of $30,000 has been proposed, among other things.

This week’s livestream from Yifei and Seth covered the top stories from last week and a new segment, DroneDJ Video of the Week. Read a summary of the topics we discussed below.

A trio of US Senators has launched a bipartisan effort to create comprehensive federal law that will specifically criminalize most forms of dangerous drone use, from terror and trafficking activity to interfering with public responders to emergencies.