49140765
submission
garymortimer writes:
Working with Deezmaker 3d print shop and manufacturer of the new Bukito miniature printer Multirotor designers Velocity Pigeon lifted the printer with their their new VPAS 8 Octocopter. The VPAS 8 has been tested with up to 3.1kg of cargo and plans for you to 3D print your own VPAS 8 will be released soon. Its a bit of a work in progress at the moment.
49101511
submission
garymortimer writes:
The exhibitor displaying their UAV systems is the company Hubei Ewatt Technology Co., LTD., located in Wuhan China. Ewatt is one of the largest suppliers of imported equipment to the Chinese State Power Electrical Grid. Ewatt entered the UAV business to fill a need that the State Power Grid has for a more safe means of power-line inspections, which lead them to develop their first UAV systems.
Ewatt founder and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Zhao Guocheng will attend the show with 4 other company executives that will help man the display. One of these Ewatt company officers is Technical Director of VTOL Vehicles Mr. Dennis Fetters, an American living and working in China for 4 years now.
48986065
submission
garymortimer writes:
Stan Snow of Mountain Lake Labs files patent #61,858,116: Tri-Articulating & Morphing Bat Wing VTOL Ornithopter.
The MLABs Bat Wing is capable of 145 degrees deep sweep fore and aft in the horizontal plane. Where most ornithopters articulate wings with one to two degrees of freedom, the MLABs Bat Wing articulates thrice with also a fourth torsional rotation of the wings and individual morphing along the wingspan’s battens — creating the world’s most morphable UAV wing to date.
Each wing individually articulates for roll and yaw control. The wing system also deeply double articulates in the vertical Bat Wing Fig 1plane for efficient ornithopter flapping — bending on the upstroke and extending to scoop more air on the downstroke. Each wing is also variable in articulation on the up and downstroke.
48909001
submission
garymortimer writes:
The Hydra program will develop and demonstrate an unmanned undersea system with a new kind of unmanned-vehicle delivery system that inserts UAVs and UUVs. stealthily into operational environments to respond quickly to situations around the world without putting U.S. military personnel at risk.
The Hydra large UUV is to use modular payloads inside a standardized enclosure to deploy a mix of UAVs and UUVs, depending on the military situation. Hydra will integrate existing and emerging technologies in new ways to create an alternate means of delivering a variety of payloads close to where they're needed, DARPA officials say.
48722555
submission
garymortimer writes:
German tabloid newspaper The Bild has unearthed new video from a herons eye view of a 2010 taxi accident in Afghanistan. According to Bild a junior officer put the Heron into auto start and then was unable to stop it. The incident occurred at Mazar-i-Sharif on Mar. 17, 2010
Watch the ground crew get out of the way quick!
48352595
submission
garymortimer writes:
Instantly in at number one as my favourite drone footage, this filming does not show bits of leg or propeller is not GoPro bent out of shape and pans up beautifully and holds the desired shot. For once I am glad they left the sound recording running to catch the noise of the blast off. Top banana. Make sure you watch it in hi res.
SpaceX’s Grasshopper flew 325 m (1066 feet)–higher than Manhattan’s Chrysler Building–before smoothly landing back on the pad. For the first time in this test, Grasshopper made use of its full navigation sensor suite with the F9-R closed loop control flight algorithms to accomplish a precision landing. Most rockets are equipped with sensors to determine position, but these sensors are generally not accurate enough to accomplish the type of precision landing necessary with Grasshopper.
47898043
submission
garymortimer writes:
Two aeronautics students planned to use remote-controlled model planes packed with explosives to carry out terrorist attacks in Germany, according to prosecutors.
German authorities are holding two men of Tunisian origin who they say are facing possible charges for the “preparation of a serious, state-threatening act of violence”.
Prosecutors say the men are suspected of “procuring information and objects to commit Islamic extremist explosive attacks with remote-controlled model airplanes,” prosecutors added.
Police investigating the terror plot on Tuesday launched a series of raids in Stuttgart and Munich in southern Germany and Saxony in the east. They also carried out one raid in Belgium. No-one was arrested.
The suspects had been under surveillance for more than a year and authorities had recently detected “an increased interest in explosives and model aircraft”, according to an unnamed security source quoted by a German news agency.
47633975
submission
garymortimer writes:
“I had no intention of using it for eye-witnessing of what’s happening in Turkey,” Jenk wrote in an email to sUASNews. “However, I wanted to take a short film of Taksim Gezi Park for myself, having in mind that soon the park would become a concrete mass and would no longer be there.”
What he saw on the ground shocked him. Jenk reported seeing men, women, and children being beaten by police. But no video evidence of police brutality aired on government-controlled television.
“It’s really difficult to explain the things I have seen,” Jenk wrote. “I have been witnessing very bad things happening to innocent people; police violence, arresting lawyers and doctors, and hurting children.”
47384593
submission
garymortimer writes:
According to the unmanned helicopter’s pilot, police shot the aircraft from the sky, which was destroyed completely on impact with the ground. The pilot was unable to recover video of the incident, but was able to obtain video leading up to that point.
47321955
submission
garymortimer writes:
An octocopter designed by Aleksey Zaitsevsky of Ecilop that flies only using power derived from solar panels. No large payload and only flight in ground effect but like many of these things its a first. Only time will tell what applications might spawn from this. If you want to have a go at building your own Aleksey has kindly created a BOM with calculations
47099949
submission
garymortimer writes:
"At Dominos we’re always looking to innovate and find new ways to deliver our pizza and a DomiCopter could fit the bill perfectly," said Simon Wallis, sales and marketing director at Domino's. "We are the number one pizza delivery company and we are committed to staying in that position.
"What better way to totally avoid the traffic than to fly — if anything this will now make us even quicker! We think it's a great way to reinforce that Domino's go to more lengths than anyone to deliver great pizza."
46979927
submission
garymortimer writes:
Your pride and joy flying off into the distance on a mission of its own is an all too common problem for amateur drone makers. Many things can cause it, lost radio link, failed control surface or servo. An iOS answer is now on the cards.
FIND MY DRONE is a FREE App developed by Communis Tech that connects your iPhone to your personal UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) using the popular MAVLink protocol.
If you were forced to land your drone some distance away, this convenient App will determine the latitude and longitude of the drones’ location and its’ distance from you. The inbuilt compass can then direct you to the drone, saving you a haphazard and time consuming search.
46937435
submission
garymortimer writes:
Officials of the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., on 22 May awarded a $15.3 million contract modification to the Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems sector in Bethpage, N.Y., to upgrade the Triton’s software from Windows XP to Windows 7.
The contract modification concerns the MQ-4C Triton Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) systems development and demonstration phase.
Also on 22 May Northrop Grumman experts completed the first flight of the Triton BAMS high-altitude UAV at the Northrop Grumman manufacturing facility in Palmdale, Calif.
Triton is designed to fly maritime surveillance missions for as long as 24 hours at altitudes of more than 10 miles to enable coverage out to 2,000 nautical miles, Northrop Grumman officials say. The UAV’s suite of sensors can detect and classify different types of ships automatically.
46887837
submission
garymortimer writes:
Germany's national railway company, Deutsche Bahn, plans to test small drones to try to reduce the amount of graffiti being sprayed on its property.
The idea is to use airborne infra-red cameras to collect evidence, which could then be used to prosecute vandals who deface property at night.
A company spokesman said drones would be tested at rail depots soon.
46817509
submission
garymortimer writes:
Google has acquired a US company that generates power using turbines mounted on tethered kites or wings.
Makani Power will become part of Google X – the secretive research and development arm of the search giant.
The deal comes as Makani carries out the first fully autonomous flights of robot kites bearing its power-generating propellers.
Google has not said how much it paid to acquire Makani, but it has invested $15m (£9.9m) in the company before now.
