sUAS News

GRAND FORKS, N.D. — North Dakota’s first drone flight training academy launched its online Remote Pilot Ground School Course today. SkySkopes Academy offers a self-paced, comprehensive course designed to give students the knowledge needed to pass the Federal Aviation Administration exam required for to receive their remote pilot certificate under Part 107. The course is […]

Flying Cross Aerial Productions, a Texas based aerial camera company specializing in the use of sUAS (drones) for motion picture and television productions, has received waiver #107W-2016-00357A from the FAA allowing the operation its sUAS when visibility and cloud clearances are below the minimums set forth in the Federal Aviation Regulations. Currently, drones cannot legally […]

This one is being misreported in the UK press not only is it being overplayed but the Chinook was recovering to RAF Benson, not RAF Odiham as is being told. I found the Airprox particularly interesting as the precision approach controller (PAR) was aware of the RPA. It appeared on his or her PAR radar. The […]

The Eli Drone Nest has been developed to provide a new dimension of autonomy to the already operational ELIX-XL multirotor platform. An installed drone nest provides an operational radius of 5km, and a network of drone nests can deliver visual information from a vast area of land. Overlapping operational radiuses mean that the command centre […]

Sharper Shape has recently refocused its strategy and undergone an organizational transition to move towards an international product company. Ilkka Hiidenheimo, born 1960, took the helm of Shaper Shape as the CEO. Hiidenheimo was the founder of Stonesoft Corporation in 1990. He served as CTO until 2004. Between the years 2004 and 2014 he held […]

Tampa, Fl.: Today, 3rd Rock Air, a provider of drone training to both commercial users and hobbyists, announced the rollout of 3 courses in the Tampa area. These courses cover drone flight training, preparation for the required FAA Part 107 knowledge test and business opportunities. Regarding the company’s launch, 3rd Rock Air President, David Cranmer […]

An exciting weekend for Philip Rowse of ProfiCNC, when not making Autopilots for unmanned aircraft he is helping bring an ex-military jump jet back to life. The AVT Harrier is on display at Avalon Airshow this weekend. The aircraft arrived in Australia in June 2015 and was transported to Ballarat, Victoria to the Advanced VTOL Technologies […]

What are the effects of the “angle between images” setting in circular missions when it comes to 3D reconstruction? Knowing which drone flight plan to design for 3D modelling can be challenging, but the good news is that Pix4Dcapture has automatic flight missions optimised for different scenarios. We tested circular missions with three image angle […]

ConsortiQ, have announced it is now an Approved Training Centre, able to award the ProQual Level 3 Certificate and Level 4 Diploma in The Remote Piloting of Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Commercial Operation. It is now the first Training Centre of it’s kind to offer an Aviation Regulator approved and Academically recognised drone qualification in […]

Canadian Hydro-Québec subsidiary MIR Innovation (Maintenance, Inspection and Robotics), has developed a device that can lift a sensor and land it on an energised power line. The Linecore sensor and multirotor that took it there balance on and test the line as they roll along it. Power lines exposed to coastal environments and extreme weather wear out, quickly. […]

The ALPHA 800 is the evolution of the SNIPER and includes all the developments and improvements of the last year and a half of extensive work of research, development and innovation. Improvements apply to all the systems in the helicopter from the mechanics to the electronics on board or available payloads. In the airframe, the […]

Huntsville, AL – GeoCue Group is pleased to announce the latest release of LP360. LP360 is the world’s most powerful and popular desktop exploitation software for point cloud data from LIDAR and SfM (Structure from Motion, point clouds produced from small unmanned aerial systems imagery). LP360 is available as a standalone application and as an […]

Master Airscrew (MAS), has officially released its advanced FPV Racing Propeller Series for intermediate and expert drone pilots. The new product line is manufactured in the company’s factory in Rancho Cordova and is already available to customers. The MAS FPV Racing props come in two flavors: – RS Series – combines distinctive bat wing like shape […]

UMS Skeldar AG, a joint venture between Swiss based UMS Aero AG and Sweden based Saab AB (publ.), is a leading international co-orporation specialized in developing innovative flying robots’ technologies for aircrafts and helicopters RPAS (Remotely Piloted Air Systems). The high-tech company focuses on the production and distribution of small and medium sized RPAS on […]

A unique, lightweight tethered flying camera system. Made for professional use cases like inspections, inventory control, incident, evidence, security patrol assistance, roof inspection, plant inspection & maintenance, live broadcasting, …. And many other applications. Intuitive & Easy Control •Flies like a kite •No piloting skills necessary •Go up to 25m – inside & outside •Guide […]

SLANTRANGE, Inc., a leading provider of next-generation, drone-based remote sensing and analytics systems for agriculture, announced today the release of their new 3p multispectral sensor system for agriculture drones. The 3p is built on the Qualcomm® Snapdragon FlightTM drone platform, a highly optimized platform for drones and robotics applications, providing the 3p with one of […]

Sentera today announced its ability to convert a DJI Mavic ™ drone into a precision scouting tool that collects TrueNDVI™ crop health data. The ultra-lightweight, super-precise Sentera NDVI Single Sensor is integrated onto the pocket-sized Mavic drone, featuring one of DJI’s most sophisticated flying cameras ever. In a single flight, visual-band RGB, near-infrared (NIR) and […]

I do not consider myself a drone business expert, and might not be a drone business oracle either. But that does not stop others professing knowledge so why should it stop me! Having followed and written about the unmanned aircraft world for almost ten years, I feel I have a finer tuned sense of what […]

Harris Corporation has received a two-year grant to help develop a first-of-its-kind solution to enable beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) operations for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Representatives from Harris and North Dakota announced a partnership agreement today to create the first UAS network in the nation to provide a full range of aviation-grade services for safe and efficient […]

ArcticShark – a groundbreaking new unmanned aerial system designed to collect the world’s most sophisticated atmospheric data in the Arctic – will undergo flight testing at Pendleton UAS Test Range. Testing began February 27. To be owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and managed by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility, a […]

xCraft is looking for a Community Manger to continue to build a strong relationship between ourselves and our customers. The Community Manager will be required to help establish a strong Social Media presence, lay the foundation for the customer service department and help guide our community through a discussion forum. A strong technical aptitude is […]

Airspace integration and management solutions for drones continue to garner new investment, but most options are based on fairytale scenarios and raise more questions than answers. I’ve been doing research on the commercial drone industry since early 2012, and it never ceases to amaze me how much hype there is. A week doesn’t go by […]

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (March 1, 2017) – Today, VStar Systems Inc., a privately held aerospace and defense systems company, announced the successful flight test of its modular Signal Intelligence Sensor, MA-C/lite, aboard the Martin UAV V-Bat aircraft. Over the duration of 35 minutes at an altitude of 400 feet above ground level, MA-C/lite collected signals […]

The world’s first-choice producer of mapping drones, senseFly, has signed a commercial agreement with leading agricultural data gathering, processing, and analytics provider, MicaSense, which enables senseFly and its distribution partners to offer MicaSense’s Atlas cloud processing platform alongside eBee drones. By making MicaSense Atlas available with senseFly’s eBee drone platforms—all of which are compatible with […]

Siemens is collaborating with US-based company SkySpecs to deploy automated drone technology for onshore and offshore wind turbine inspections. The goal of the collaboration is to develop a push-button inspection system that is faster, repeatable and more efficient than existing methods. Siemens is involving its Wind Power business and its next47 venture unit, which was […]

Congratulations to the Ardupilot.org project. On February 27th they were selected as a participating 2017 Google Summer of Code organisation. Sponsored by Google, GSOC is a unique program matching open source organizations and students interested in participating in open source development. Spend your summer break writing code and learning about open source development while earning […]

Major industrial adoption of drones is set to surge forward with an education partnership between Australian-based cloud platform Propeller Aero and Australia’s leading drone pilot training organisation, UAVAIR. Industries want to use drones. They can see drones will save them time and money, reduce risk and serve them with better data – they just don’t […]

A busy drone stuff this week (DSTW) that over ran and I blame Bruce from RC Model Reviews. We talk, regulations (as ever), power-lines, detailed maps touch on the new Matrice and quadcopter patents. This is how it played out. Bruce Simpson fought with and won in a war over words with the Civil Aviation […]

Draganfly Innovations is proud to announce that they have signed an agreement with SureFire LLC to integrate and test their LED technology as a complete system with Draganfly’s UAV’s. With both companies deeply rooted in serving the public safety space for decades, it is a natural progression to combine Draganfly’s drone technology with SureFire’s superior […]

In order to explore how to better expand and improve their services, French photography and photogrammetry-based service provider Unautregard teamed up with Planète Sports & Loisirs and 3D Arcwest, to capture, 3D model, and 3D print the ruins of the Abbey of Chateliers and the church of Ars-en-Ré: two cultural heritage icons of the Île […]

Wingcopter, a German manufacturer of the fully autonomous Wingcopter tiltrotor VTOL and finalist in the 2017 Drones for Good competition, have partnered with UAVenture to deliver a complete UAS for professional applications with their commercial flight control platform, AirRails. The Wingcopter is a universal all electric composite tiltrotor aircraft capable of carrying and operating a […]

The SF Drone School is not new, but the bolt on the Research Center is. Treasure Island has for a long time been the unofficial Silicon Valley drone proving grounds. Continuing in that tradition, Werner von Stein, Reiner Von Weber and I will work together to build out a repeatable validation process for testing and […]

xCraft is the fastest growing drone manufacturer in the Northwest. Our mission and your future job is to build, develop, and design powerful flying machines. We are looking for a rockstar software engineer with excellent design and electrical engineering skills who has the ability to learn quickly and adapt to the ever-changing environment. This person […]

In the case of losing control of a drone, certain emergency systems are necessary to avoid the destruction of the drone and furthermore to minimise the danger for objects and human beings on the ground. Just recently, Meteomatics received a new US-patent from the United States Patent and Trademark office for an innovative alternative to […]

This timely and important event, Drones in Agriculture, will look at how modern drone technology can be used to carry out a variety of tasks and improve economic outcomes for the man on the land. The wide range of UAV operations will be examined in detail. The conference will feature three highly credentialed presenters. Among […]

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA‑ASI), a leading manufacturer of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) systems, radars, and electro-optic and related mission systems solutions, today announced the official launch of its Team Reaper® Australia solution to the Project Air 7003 requirement, together with Australian teammates Cobham, CAE Australia, Raytheon Australia, and Flight Data Systems. The Team […]

Eagle-Eye Drone Service has achieved success in identifying submerged cultural artefacts underwater using mapping software. This is huge for the SAR industry to help minimise time in man-hours spent looking for a submerged body and documenting shallow water accident crime scenes. One of the co-owners of Eagle Eye Drone Service is a member of the […]

Transpower today announced it will conduct New Zealand’s first ‘beyond line of sight’ flight using a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS or drone). Transpower will be the only NZ organisation to have undertaken this type of flight. This week, a drone will be used to conduct aerial inspections of transmission lines and towers in the […]

We are looking for an experienced Web UI Engineer to join our team of 8 engineers at Hivemapper. We have a growing web application, a large part of which is our 3D map viewer, called Flight View. Beyond fluency in Javascript, CSS, and HTML, experience working on large web applications (as opposed to web pages) […]

Skylogic Research, LLC (http://www.droneanalyst.com/) today announced that Christopher Korody and Will Tompkinson will join the Drone Analyst® network of Contributor / Advisors. Each are specialized commercial unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) industry experts and allow Skylogic Research to scale its market analysis to meet the growing demand of industry insights. “We are very excited to have […]

In the Matrice 200, DJI has finally addressed their professional series of multirotors biggest issue. They can now look up. The reason all the world’s professional inspection companies until now used other aircraft. A pretty handy looking quad, if I could afford one, I would have one! I don’t think I will get that past […]

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University recently hosted the 2016 U.S. Aviation Law Seminar at the Daytona Beach, Florida Campus. This short-course was part of the new Aviation Law Diploma, a collaborative program between Embry-Riddle and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and featured leading authorities from academia and industry with subject matter expertise in airline passenger protection […]

Drone Mapping Service Providers Weigh in On Determining Price Points/ By all accounts, the commercial drone industry is booming. When Part 107 licensing became available in August of 2016, the FAA certified 12,000 remote pilots in the first three weeks alone. By the time the year came to a close, this number had reached 23,000, and […]

ScientificAerospace are proudly launching their Lynx FarScight at Avalon Airshow on the 3rd of March 2017. Lynx FarScight is ScientificAerospace’s next generation, long endurance, high precision surveying solution. Capable of flying missions in excess of 2.5 hours and performing direct georeferencing of the photo locations with centimetre accuracy, employing ScientificAerospace’s proprietary PPK GNSS correction software 4Precision. For […]

Unmanned Systems Canada is pleased to announce a milestone in Canadian aviation history, with the commencement on 24 February 2017 of regular Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) small Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) flights in civil airspace. Ventus Geospatial of Lethbridge/Calgary, Alberta is the first company to meet the stringent criteria required to fly a […]

AIS (Arctic Innovative Solutions) have now released a new drone app called LostMyDrone , where users can post theire lost drone in the app and hopfully by doing this it can be found at the earliest stage. Each year disappears drones around the world due to interference, pilot mistake or equipment failure. Many drones can […]

If you want an NDVI map while you’re still in the field, cut out a potentially long upload to the cloud and start processing directly in Pix4Dag desktop. Part 1: How quickly can you go from landing to processing? With a predicted population jump to 9 billion by 2050, and therefore a corresponding 70% increase in […]

Agriculture once seemed to be the most promising industry for drones to disrupt, but slow adoption has forced many drone companies to look elsewhere for faster returns. While drones have so far not made extensive headway onto farms, it is clear to me that they perfectly complement the precision agriculture technology that is steadily taking […]

We are taking the leap to move beyond pretty pictures to use drones as our workhorses for collecting real data and providing real information. We’d like to invite you to share your thoughts and experiences at the UAS4RS 2017 (Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Remote Sensing) Conference to be held at the Hobart Function and Convention […]

The Nevada Drone Industry set a new long-distance record for aerial package delivery flying a fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) under beyond line of sight conditions. The backdrop was an urban environment set among the scenic area of Walker Lake with the Nevada-headquartered Drone America flight team flying more than 39 miles to deliver a […]