DroneDJ

The first shipment from Autel Robotics’ new drone series, EVO Lite and EVO Nano, has finally arrived at the US warehouse and should reach distribution partners in the next few days. Unlike Autel’s previous enterprise and prosumer offerings, these drones are meant for beginners and veterans alike. As such, the drone manufacturer has released a new, easy-to-use Autel Sky app to make shooting, editing, and sharing easier at the touch of a button.

The first shipment from Autel Robotics’ new drone series, EVO Lite and EVO Nano, has finally arrived in North America today. Originally announced in September 2021, the drones will now be displayed for the first time in public at the upcoming CES technology industry trade show in Las Vegas.

Okay, any way you slice it, this story is really weird. News reports in Mississippi say a woman was struck and injured by a decorative boat anchor dropped on her by a drone in what was not an isolated incident. How could that ever be a thing?

COVID-19-related complications have forced the city of Melbourne to cancel its much-anticipated New Year’s Eve drone show – a 350-craft spectacle that had been touted as the largest ever planned in Australia.

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.

As an exploit, it may not rank up there with UAVs saving lives on first responder missions or locating people desperately lost in the inhospitable wilds, but an Australian farmer is celebrating what he believes to be the world’s first sunflower crop to be entirely planted by a drone.

World champion drone manufacturer DJI has long said its tech activities extend well beyond UAVs. The Chinese giant seems to be proving that again in announcing the expansion of its DJI Automotive division producing key components for autonomous driving smart cars.

Leading autonomous air vehicle (AAV) maker EHang stepped up its business development in Japan with a pair of notable deals, including securing the first order for its VT-30 long-range craft and deepening its work preparing the nation for looming urban air mobility (UAM) operations.

A large Japanese cleaning company has adapted its use of vacuum technology – as well as drones – to develop an efficient tool for the dangerous and occasionally deadly work of breaking up wasp nests.

The Embraer group’s urban air mobility (UAM) unit, Eve, has signed another deal to sell its future electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles to a US passenger airline, and will also examine the craft’s development for potential defense and security clients through a partnership with the UK’s BAE.

Bird watchers in the UK were outraged at seeing a drone fly in and break up a recurring mass flight phenomenon by starlings known as murmurations. The interruption last week near Brighton’s pier was also denounced for the dangers that the craft’s propellers posed to the performing creatures.

XAG, one of the top three commercial drone manufacturers of 2021, has launched five new products that will become available globally in 2022. And as was expected, XAG’s new autonomous solutions, which include both drones and ground robots, pack in more efficiency, precision, and safety than the company’s previous models.

CES 2022 is back in person this year (at least for now), and we hope to see some great new gadgets on display and share them with you. Yifei and Seth discussed what they were looking forward to in the latest DroneDJ video on our YouTube channel.

The tumult in the UK over drones live-streaming horse races to provide an advantage to clients in betting rings has reached a new pitch, with clearly displeased and disapproving politicians joining the debate. Their earnest outrage notwithstanding, the desire to thwart the lucrative practice continues to be undermined by a confounding consideration: The activity isn’t illegal under existing laws.

Israel is nearing the halfway mark of its national drone initiative – an ambitious pilot program seeking to test and prepare operational capacities for UAV use in daily life and business, and place participating companies at the forefront of rapidly approaching aerial services.

A century-old unit of the UK’s Royal Navy may be getting an aerial makeover. At least that’s what officials hope in examining whether drones can be used to assist the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) transport supplies to large naval ships around the globe.

The end of 2021 is proving a busy time for Embraer’s urban air mobility unit (UAM) Eve, which in the space of a few hours announced the securing of two major electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft orders, as well as its plans to join the rising number of sector companies introducing their stocks on Wall Street.

Yifei and Seth discussed the top stories from the last week over on DroneDJ’s YouTube Channel this week. Check out the video below.

Custodians of the Seaford Head coastal cliffs in southeast England know loss of their archeologically important site to erosion and rising sea levels is a question of when, not if, and as a result are using drones and other digital technology to thoroughly map and model the area before it’s gone.

For the next few hours, you can grab the DJI Mavic Mini Fly More Combo for $299, the drone’s all-time lowest price.

Led by World Wildlife Foundation Australia, a team of concerned organizations is mounting a drone-powered effort to create a “koala corridor” of trees and foliage to restore the marsupial’s habitat wiped out by recent fires, and reverse its population decline.

US company ShotSpotter, whose controversial gunfire detection system has been gathering abundant negative press in recent times, is teaming up with an Israel-based manufacturer of autonomous drones Airobotics to provide law enforcement agencies with better situational awareness.

In Germany, about 75,000 people experience sudden cardiac arrest every year – and only 11% survive. This survival rate is linked directly to an ambulance’s response time and early defibrillation. But with ambulances taking nine to 15 minutes on average to reach a rural area, and more remote areas being completely inaccessible by road, a team of students decided to come up with a means of faster intervention. Enter, a remote-controlled rescue drone with a defibrillator on board.

The organizer of the Second International Drone Show Competition, SPH Engineering, has announced the winning teams and individuals in the henceforth annual event. In addition to awards in the six designated categories, judges also decided to acknowledge 10 outstanding participants for their aerial work.