The UAV Digest - The weekly audio podcast bringing you coverage of unmanned aerial vehicles and syst

Time 2020-11-02 20:05:28

Web Name: The UAV Digest - The weekly audio podcast bringing you coverage of unmanned aerial vehicles and syst

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Brookhaven, Georgia will be using drones as part of its first responder program. The police department’s UAS unit was funded for four drones to respond to 911 calls, witness crimes in progress, conduct investigations, and document crime scenes.Reportedly, Brookhaven would be the second U.S. city to adopt this program. The Chula Vista Police Department in California was the first in 2018.The ResponDrone Project is developing a situational awareness system for emergencies and twelve focus groups were conducted in six countries. The focus groups showed weak knowledge of the use of drones, including some negative feedback on drones relating to privacy issues. ResponDrone “recommends that emergency drones carry special identification, such as a specific colour or a logo, make distinctive sounds or have unique lights. Further, it is recommended that the residents are informed about flights and drills beforehand. An ominous announcement came from @TravelGov, the official Twitter for the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs:#SaudiArabia: The Embassy is tracking reports of possible missiles or drones that may be headed toward Riyadh today, October 28. Stay alert. If you hear a loud explosion or if sirens are activated, immediately seek cover.ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder has developed a quadcopter with a shield that expands to become half of a Hoberman Sphere. The shield protects the craft and reduces the impact on barriers.Blue Bear Systems Research is demonstrating a swarm of twenty heterogeneous aircraft and payloads. The mission was conducted using three operators to complete the mission profiles.A hexacopter delivered a small payload to the SSBN USS Henry M. Jackson off the Hawaiian Coast. The simulation showed the ability of a UAS to deliver packages to a sub while underway.CycloTech is an Austrian company that is developing a propulsion system based on Voith-Schneider propellers, which the company calls “cyclogyro rotors.” The system combines characteristics of helicopters and conventional propeller blades. CycloTech plans to fly a demonstration model by the end of the year.The “Holographic Aerosol Particle Imager,” or HAPI is small enough to be carried by a commercial drone and can resolve particles larger than ten micrometers in size. It can image free-floating aerosol particles from any direction and doesn’t have to actually contact the particles. HAPI uses digital holography and is built from 3D-printed polymer structuresThe Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) announced that starting February 2021, if you are 16 years old or above and want to fly a drone above 1.5kg in weight, you must complete online training and pass an exam to get licensed. If you are under 16 years old, you must be supervised by an older licence holder.There are two different certificates: An unmanned aircraft basic training certificate for those flying drones between 1.5kg and 7kg for recreational or educational purposes, and an unmanned aircraft pilot license for those flying drones above 7kg or who are flying them for commercial purposes. Penalties for flying drones without the appropriate licenses include jail time and fines up to $100,000 or both.Pipistrel Aircraft is developing the Nuuva V300, a long-range large-capacity heavy-weight autonomous eVTOL UAV designed for aerial cargo delivery of up to 460 kg. Power comes from eight Type Certified battery-powered Pipistrel E-811 electric engines. Entry into service is planned for the second half of 2023. The smaller Nuuva V20 is targeted at last-mile delivery missions.Pipistrel selected Honeywell’s Compact Fly-By-Wire system for the Nuuva V300 cargo UAV. Honeywell is leveraging air transport fly-by-wire systems into Part 23, eVTOL, and urban air mobility aircraft platforms.Airbus, and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) have won an EU contract to operate medium-altitude long-endurance, remotely piloted aircraft systems for “maritime aerial surveillance services.” Airbus and IAI will provide the equipment and human operators and the drones will be based in either Greece, Italy, or Malta. Testing is planned on the Greek island of Crete with Mediterranean drone operations starting in 2021.The University of Bristol and Thales are testing technology for autonomous drones and unmanned boats that could be used for offshore wind farm maintenance, or even cleaning plastics from the ocean.Bushfires in Australia have killed or displaced an estimated three billion animals and up to seven billion trees were destroyed or damaged. The Koala habitat has been devastated. The World Wide Fund for Nature Australia is trialing a drone seeding program where the drones shoot Gum tree seeds into the ground. This has been successful in other countries with other types of seeds.A previously undiscovered geoglyph of a large cat was discovered on a Peruvian hillside.Thursday, October 29, 2020, 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM (EST) with featured guest Austin Worcester, Senior Program Manager for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems at the Civil Air Patrol, where he is responsible for leading and administering the largest public safety/emergency services small unmanned aerial system (sUAS) operation in the world. This program encompasses all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the USVI.The webinar will also feature Fritz Reber, a former Captain of the Chula Vista Police Department, where he served as UAS Commander and developed the agency’s internationally recognized Drone-as-First-Responder (DFR) program in partnership with the FAA’s San Diego Drone Integration Pilot Program (IPP). The webinar will be hosted by Guillaume Delepine, a current Skydio Product Marketing Manager and former Public Safety Lead and Enterprise Strategy Manager.Google parent company Alphabet and SoftBank demonstrated a stable LTE connection from the solar-powered Sunglider drone at 62,000 feet. The connection supported an international video call with members from Loon and AeroVironment speaking with HAPSMobile members based in Japan. Alphabet’s Loon jointly developed the communications payload, and SoftBank’s HAPSMobile, which built the aircraft. HAPSMobile is minority-owned by AeroVironment.The Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) recently flight-tested the Rustom-2 MALE prototype drone. It flew for eight hours of flying at 16,000 feet and by the end of 2020, DRDO expects the prototype to fly at 26,000 feet with an 18-hour endurance.Reportedly, the China Academy of Electronics and Information Technology (CAEIT) conducted a test in September with a swarm of loitering munitions (also called suicide drones). They were deployed from 48 tubular launchers mounted on a light tactical vehicle, and also deployed from helicopters. The folded fixed-wing drones launch from the tubes.Video: 中国电科陆空协同固定翼无人机“蜂群”系统 (China Electric Land and Air Cooperative Fixed-wing UAV Swarm System)University of Washington researchers wanted to solve the problem of inserting sensors into locations that are unsafe or too small for humans. So they developed a 98 milligram sensor system that can be carried by a tiny drone, or even an insect, like a moth. When the carrier gets above the destination, a Bluetooth command causes the sensor to release and fall to the ground. The sensor can survive a fall of up to 72 feet (or 22 meters) and collect data for 1.3-2.5 years when transmitting 10-50 packets per hour on a 68 milligram battery.The Buena Vista Drone Flying Park in Colorado is taking shape. The Central Colorado UAS Club and the Buena Vista Recreation Department broke ground for the Park on October 8, 2020. The purpose of the Club is to bring together UAS owners, pilots, and interested parties in an informal and social atmosphere where they exchange ideas and learn about the safe, legal, and ethical operation of UAS. When the Drone Park is complete, the area will have space for pilots to seek certification for the use of drones, an obstacle course, and a racecourse that might host sanctioned races in the future. TNL Aviation is a founding sponsor.The i9 is a weaponized drone created for the UK’s Strategic Command by an unnamed company. It’s a human-operated, 6-rotor drone, about a meter across and intended as a breaching weapon for urban warfare. It uses machine vision to identify targets and carries twin shotguns.There is some resistance to lethal autonomous weapons, including weaponized drones, although the i9 is reportedly not autonomous. The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots says the “US, China, Israel, South Korea, Russia, and the UK are developing weapons systems with significant autonomy in the critical functions of selecting and attacking targets.” They are concerned that taking lives without human intervention crosses a moral threshold. The organization published the paper “Country Positions on Negotiating a Treaty to Ban and Restrict Killer Robots” [PDF] which lists 30 countries that have called for a prohibition on fully autonomous weapons. The UK and the US are not included.Walmart partnered with drone delivery company Flytrex to deliver “select grocery and household essential items” with automated drones. Walmart is also partnering with Zipline for health and wellness products. Delivery test trials are scheduled for 2021. In addition, Walmart is partnering with Quest Diagnostics and DroneUp for at-home COVID-19 self-collection kits. Amazon and Walmart are pursuing different strategies: Amazon is developing their own drones while Walmart is relying on 3rd parties.Verge Aero provides drone light shows and the software needed to produce them, making them experts in drone swarming. They’ve assisted the History Channel with their series Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigations. That show wanted to know if drone swarming technology could lead to UFO sightings.American football is proceeding with caution. Some games are being played with no spectators and others are allowing a small number of fans into the stadium. Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home to the Atlanta Falcons, has partnered with Lucid Drone Technologies as part of their cleaning protocol. The drones have electrostatic spraying nozzles and distribute medical-grade disinfecting chemicals. An inhibitor prevents bacteria and viruses from adhering to surfaces without leaving a residue. Lucid drones are built in the U.S. The D1 disinfecting drone is intended for stadiums, schools, and manufacturing facilities. The C1 cleaning drone is designed for building exteriors and windows.The Azerbaijani military has converted old Soviet-era civilian An-2’s into UAVs. A special kit replaces the human pilot in the cockpit and the conversion takes a short time to install. These unmanned An-2’s are being used in the Armenian and Azerbaijani conflict over a disputed separatist region. Satellite imagery shows that Azerbaijan deployed more than 50 An-2 biplane aircraft to one airport. Several have been shot down.At Seven Mile Beach near Lennox Head, south of Byron, two Bryde’s whales were filmed swimming with surfers. The whales, which weigh 12 to 20 tonnes each, were joined by a pod of dolphins in hunting a large school of bait fish while surfers caught waves above them.Amazon announced the “Ring Always Home Cam,” an indoor security drone that flies around inside your home. The drone can upload video to the cloud, or stream it. Some have security concerns about the system that goes on sale in 2021.The Bell Autonomous Pod Transport (APT) 70 eVTOL cargo drone flew autonomously through the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area at 500 feet AGL. A remote pilot monitored the flight from a ground station, but did not have to intervene. This was a simulation of a medical transport mission, and part of NASA’s Systems Integration and Operationalization (SIO) demonstration activity. Partner Xwing provided the detect-and-avoid system.Military shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries has been producing small to medium-sized underwater drones. Their new Hampton facility will be able to build larger drones about 30 feet long. The facility will also manufacture and assemble parts for Boeing, which is producing the ORCA XLUUV unmanned submarines for the Navy.Women and Drones seeks to bring together women to help them connect and succeed in the drone industry. The Humanitarian Award recognizes co-ed teams, organizations, or companies with a primary focus of using drones for good. Women and Drones announced that this year’s Humanitarian Team Award Honoree goes to Kenya Flying Labs, a non-profit organization that uses drone technology for the benefit of people in local communities.Six organizations that pioneer new ways to use drones for good are winners of the XCELLENCE Humanitarian and Public Safety Awards from the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International (AUVSI). The award is sponsored by DJI. The recipients of 2020 AUVSI XCELLENCE Humanitarian and Public Safety Awards are:Walmart launched a pilot drone delivery program where Quest Diagnostics Covid-19 tests are delivered to homes within a one-mile radius of the North Las Vegas Walmart store. Customers receive a text from DroneUp when the test is on its way and test kits land on people s driveways, front sidewalks or backyard.The ATSB report describes the Airbus Zephyr that had launched from Wyndham Airport on 28 September 2019 for a high altitude flight. After a series of uncommanded rolls in unstable atmospheric conditions, the Zephyr entered into an uncontrolled spiral descent. The maximum airspeed was exceeded, the roll angle increased beyond structural limitations, and both wings fractured at about mid-span.Reliable Robotics completed test flights for two of its remote-piloted aircraft models. FedEx now owns the Cessna 208 Caravan or C208.In this MissionGO and Nevada Donor Network collaboration, two successful test flights were made. The first flight delivered research corneas from Southern Hills Hospital and Medical Center to Dignity Health – St. Rose Dominican, San Martín Campus. The second flight delivered  a research kidney from an airport to a location outside of a small town in the Las Vegas desert. This was the longest organ delivery flight in UAS history.The RYNO UAV is a survey-grade micro-drone from IdeaForge, a drone manufacturer in India. RYNO is designed for high accuracy mapping applications and delivers centimeter-level accuracy. The drone has a flight time of over 40 minutes and a range of up to 4 km. The performance of the RYNO UAV is claimed to be comparable to more expensive categories of drones.The U.K. is establishing a commercial drone corridor called the “Arrow Drone Zone.” Airspace will be available to any fully automated drones, including flying beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS). The zone will be located in the town of Reading, to the west of London, and managed by Altitude Angel with their GuardianUTM O/S platform.The Army awarded the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign a four-year, $8 million contract to research multi-fuel chemistry and investigate advanced propulsion technologies for high-speed air launches. Researchers will study the ignition chemistry of fuels using machine learning algorithms and develop materials for novel ignition assistant technologies for flexible-fuel drones.The two companies want to gain practical flying the VoloDrone before the VoloCity air taxi enters service. The drone Is remote-controlled, can lift up to 200 kilograms (440 lbs.), and has a range of 40 kilometers (25 miles). Volocopter CEO Florian Reuter said, The logistics opportunity in the urban market is just as big as the passenger market.  The landing was conducted by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) with their Heron reconnaissance UAV. The landing at Ben Gurion International Airport was entirely remote-controlled. This is reported to be the first time a UAV was operated alongside commercial flights in civilian airspace.The University of Hawaii is collaborating with Dolphin Quest on a study to better understand the health of dolphin populations. A Ph.D. student has been operating a drone over a pregnant bottlenose dolphin at the Dolphin Quest facility. The goal is to detect pregnancy in female dolphins in the open ocean.The FAA granted a special temporary waiver to Skyward, A Verizon company, that allows civilian operations to inspect critical communications infrastructure in the U.S. Company pilots can fly the Percepto Sparrow drone from their homes to inspect critical communications infrastructure near the Big Hollow wildfire in Washington. The waiver permits operations 24 hours a day, with less than 3 miles of visibility, and no pilot or observer on site. Skyward spent nearly a year testing and proving that it could safely fly without onsite personnel.The former top Federal Aviation Administration executive brings airspace management and airport safety expertise to the D-Fend counter-drone technology company. Vermont photographer John Rowe captured drone footage of the fall colors at Norton Pond.There is a lot of trash in the oceans. One estimate puts it at around 26-66 million tons of waste with 94% of that is on the seafloor. The EU-funded SeaClear project wants to clean up the mess. Under this project An unmanned surface vessel acts as a “mothership.” Tethered to it are drones and remote-operated vehicles (ROVs) that will use AI-based algorithms to map, identify, and classify the rubbish. A combined suction-gripper manipulator will collect it.The Boeing Australia Loyal Wingman aircraft that was rolled out in May 2020 had its first engine run. Also known as the Airpower Teaming System (ATS), the first test flight is expected later in 2020.Earlier this year, a DJI Phantom 4 crashed into one of the four wind turbines at a sewage treatment facility. The drone was being used to survey the Bristol sewage treatment works in Avonmouth. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch report [PDF] says: The pilot was using the NATS Drone Assist app1 as part of the flight planning and risk assessment of the flight; however, the app did not mention the wind turbines, so the pilot looked up “windturbine height” on the internet which returned a height of 328 ft.” Except the wind turbine actually has a height of 413 ft above the ground.According to Power Engineering International, since the Covid-19 pandemic, power companies are turning to drones for inspections. The article describes the recently unveiled DJI Matrice 300 RTK commercial drone platform a quadcopter with fold-up arms, up to 55 minutes of flight time, and transmission up to 15 km away.Rightly or wrongly, DJI has taken a hit to their image because of accusations about data transmission to China. Governments responded with bans on Chinese drones but some drone makers are taking advantage of the situation. Last month the Defense Department approved Skydio, Parrot, and three others to supply U.S.-manufactured drones to federal government agencies. DJI announced an internet kill switch on more drones that stops data transmission on sensitive flying missions.Sometimes marine animals become distressed: tangled in a net, tangled in some of that plastic floating around the oceans, or they may be sick. Drones can be an asset because they can assess the situation so that marine biologists (and others) can bring the equipment they need to help the animal. Marine biologist Genni Brookshire (an FAA-certified drone pilot) and her team partnered with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to find the pitch and volume levels that stress marine life the least. They plan to publish their findings in a peer-reviewed journal and to make the information available for free on Ceto Marine Research’s website.Verge video director Vjeran Pavic took photographs of San Francisco and Sutro Tower just after sunrise using a drone.An Ontario man received 13 citations for flying a drone in a harassing manner over residential areas. The Class B violations were issued under ORS 837.370 for operating a drone over privately owned premises in a manner that “intentionally, knowingly or recklessly harass or annoy the owner or occupant” of those premises. The man is scheduled for an October 7 court appearance.This episode we are joined by Skyward president Mariah Scott and product manager Amanda Breese.Mariah Scott has taken businesses from creation through exit, and built new markets in commercial drones, healthcare, identity services, and media delivery across North America, Europe, and Asia. As the president of Skyward, she helps enterprises realize the potential of drones. She’s built the company through startup to a successful acquisition by Verizon. Skyward software now manages drone programs for Fortune 500 companies as well as drone flight service startups. Skyward is actively developing the global standards needed to enable this new technology.Amanda Breese is a product manager for Skyward’s web application. She leads frontend development and works closely with design and engineering teams to deliver Skyward software features. Amanda has ten years of experience working in engineering and support roles.We discuss the significance of drone remote identification and the private/public partnership model used to create the technology framework. Skyward worked primarily on network-based remote identification but broadcast-based solutions are also part of the framework.Skyward has recently expanded its Aviation Management Platform to include a new Approval Workflow feature, which allows drone crews to seek approval from managers before deploying to the field. This supports Skyward’s strategy to help companies mitigate risks and liability in their corporate drone operations as they adopt new technology.Fighting wildfires is dangerous at night and typically aerial firefighting is suspended. However, optionally piloted aircraft could be a solution. Kaman Corp. is converting its conventionally piloted K-MAX heavy-lift helicopter to be optionally piloted. Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky Aviation company is developing the Matrix aerial firefighting helicopter solution that is intended to make just about any helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft optionally piloted.Pilots on two airplanes on final approach into Los Angeles International Airport reported seeing someone with a jetpack at 3,000 feet. Was it a jetpack, or was it a manikin strapped to a large electric drone?The FAA has approved exemption 18602 for the Amazon Prime Air MK27 unmanned aircraft to operate in cargo delivery operations without an airworthiness certificate. The approval allows Amazon to continue operations and development without certification, but with a number of limitations.The MK27 drones weigh 88 pounds, about the weight of a standard lawn mower. Some people have safety concerns since the Amazon flight manuals the company shares with the FAA are proprietary. We don’t know how Amazon is planning to mitigate risks.Japan Airlines (JAL) and four other companies will undertake a study to explore the logistics of a drone delivery service by 2022. The drones would deliver pharmaceuticals to hospitals, food to offices and apartments, and provide drone security patrols. Drone project testing is planned for Tokyo Bay and stations around the Metropolitan area. Besides JAL, the other companies are KDDI (the telecommunications operator), East Japan Railways, Weathernews, and Terra Drone Corporation.In the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, Congress asked the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau to submit a report on spectrum allocation for unmanned aircraft. The FCC has submitted that report, which recommends proceeding with rulemaking to enable the use of the 5030-5091 MHz band.Nordic Unmanned flew a drone carrying a 3D-printed part to the Troll A platform in the North Sea. The part was for the lifeboat system on the platform is operated by Equinor ASA, a Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company. The 80 kilometre flight took about one hour at an altitude of about 5000 feet. The drone was a Camcopter S-100 model, manufactured by Schiebel.Isaac Kaminer, an engineering professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School says “large-scale adversarial swarms” of drones are an “imminent threat.” Instead of trying to shoot down super swarms, Kaminer proposes to use the swarm against itself.Laws exist to protect endangered species, but organized criminal networks don’t follow laws so the Kashmir World Foundation (KwF) is fighting back with technology. KwF designs, develops, and applies unmanned autonomous systems, including the Eagle Ray blended wing body Eagle Ray anti-poaching drone. See: Eagle Ray UAS Scans for Poachers.Entomologist Diana Obregon has been studying the effect of pesticides and deforestation on pollinating bees. She used drones to assess the forest around crops, then correlated that to pesticide residues in the crop and the diversity and abundance of bees visiting the crop.Norwegen airport operator Avinor is testing an unmanned traffic management (UTM) system at two airports. The UTM system provides an operational overview of the airspace and allows two-way communication between air traffic control and drone operators. Ultimately, the system is planned for 18 towers in Norway. Avinor Air Navigation Services (ANS) is working with Frequentis and Altitude Angel to implement the UTM system.

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