The future is finally here.
NASA Explores the Use of Robotic Bees on Mars
Marsbees could cover a lot more ground on the Red Planet than sluggish rovers.
Drones to offer faster, cheaper monitoring of Antarctica’s ecosystems
Their job will be to take pictures of fat seals and I’m so, so envious.
AI-powered drones race against human pilots
Humans had the upper hand for now. In the long run, though, drones prove more reliable.
Dragonfly dual-quadcopter drone proposed to explore Titan to understand how life appeared
The final selection for New Horizons is expected in mid-2019.
Drones in Sweden carry defibrillators to save cardiac arrest victims
They reduced response times by over 75% during trials.
Cooperative prey hunting and sharing observed in Norwegian seal-eating killer whales
In Norway, a research project regularly uses drones to investigate dietary habits and predation behaviours of killer whale groups.
Pilot program aims to use drones to drop medical supplies in isolated areas
When you need medical supplies, you need them immediately and one startup promises to do it faster than anybody.
Flying Aerobot drone is being designed to soar in the skies of Titan
The drone will have to be light but solid enough to survive in the moon’s harsh atmosphere.
First solar-powered boat to cross the Atlantic embarks on historical journey
A little ship braving the ocean on its own.
Flying quarter-sized RoboBee perches to save energy
Harvard roboticists made an insect-like flying robot that perches on ceilings to save energy, like bats, birds or butterflies.
NSA’s Skynet might be marking innocent people on its hit list
Between 2,500 and 4,000 so-called ‘extremists’ have been killed by drone strikes and kill squads in Pakistan since 2004. Maybe as early as 2007, the NSA has targeted terrorists based on metadata supplied by machine learning program named Skynet. I have no idea who would find naming Skynet a machine designed to list people for assassination a bright idea, but that’s besides the point. The real point is that the inner workings of this software, as revealed in part by Edward Snowden from his leaks, suggest that the program might be targeting innocent people.
This is the first human-carrying drone: is the world ready for it?
hinese drone making company Ehang recently showed off one of the most impressive contraptions at the CES convention in Las Vegas: a manned drone. It can fly as high as 11,500 feet, top speed of 63mph and a range of 20 minutes worth of powered flight. It can fit one person and a small backpack. It looks and sounds impressive, but is the world ready for it? For sure no, but the prospects for the future already sound appealing. Finally, the age The Jetsons foretold might finally be nigh.
Drone footage of Lima’s fireworks is the prettiest thing I’ve seen today
Take a little break and enjoy the festivities all over again, all thanks to Jeff Cremer and his trusty drone.
Drones build a rope bridge, then grad student bravely crosses it
A couple of quadrotors wove a bridge out of polyethylene fiber rope in an intricate dance. Some 120 meters of rope were used by the quadrotors to bridge the 7.4-meter gap, neatly tying knots, links, and braiding. Ultimately, the final test was passed after an ETH Zurich’s Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control student crossed the robot-manufactured bridge.
Watch these drones build a rope bridge that’s safe to walk on
Drones are often feared as instruments of destruction, and as John Oliver pointed out, in some parts of the world, people fear blue skies because that’s when the drones strike. But this technology isn’t only used to destroy – it can also be used to create, as demonstrated by these very efficient quadrocopters building a rope bridge. Flying machines, by definition,
NASA builds drone prototype for Mars flight
NASA is preparing to send a drone to Mars by 2024 – they’ve already developed a small, lightweight craft that could conduct aerial surveys and identify potential landing areas and zones of interest.
Military wants to use swarms of disposable “Cicada” drones: dropping flies behind enemy lines
A mini-drone that fits in the palm of your hand could give the military an upper hand on the battlefield by providing key intelligence readings. Hundreds of these small, plastic drones could be dropped off a flight and left to scatter across the battlezone. Though they don’t have any engines, these “Cicada” drones are equipped with sensors that help adjust the gliding pattern, directing the drone towards a dropzone with an accuracy within a couple of feet. These are hard to spot since they easily disguise as a bird from afar and once behind the lines can use their sensors and microphones to spy on enemy positions. These can also prove very useful for civilian missions, most notably for gathering meteorological data.
Autonomous underwater gliders plan missions and coordinate by themselves
Climate models and environmental monitoring missions are ever more reliant on autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to scour the ocean depths and bring back valuable data like temperature, salinity, carbon levels and so on. Researchers at MIT have now upgraded the way AUVs perform their missions by adding an extra dimension to their autonomy. They demonstrate how a pack of AUVs, directed by a “captain” drone, is able to navigate obstacles and retrieve data with minimal intervention. This dramatically enhances performance and might revolutionize the way scientists study the oceans.