CCROV™ - Under water vision
Engineering Inspections
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Search and Rescue
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Security Inspections
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CCROV is a commercial underwater drone with a difference – it’s fitted with a 4K camera. That means you can pilot it around the depths of the ocean, and live stream or capture the footage in stunningly high resolution.
This is an intriguing proposition, because the ocean still has many secrets to yield – according to the National Ocean Service in the US, we’ve explored less than 5% of the world’s waters, and what better way to see them than in 4K? |
The 3,840 x 2,160 pixel resolution should make the deep blue clearer than ever, thanks in no small part to a Sony IMX 206 1/2.3-inch CMOS sensor with 16-megapixels. Drilling down further, the lens is a 20mm (35mm format equivalent) wide-angle with an FOV of 94-degree and an f/2.8 aperture.
As well as recording in 4K at 25fps or 30fps, it can also record in 1080p Full HD and in 720p HD, should you want smaller file sizes at the expense of some loss of detail.
That’s the imaging side of it, but what about the manoeuvrability? It’s easily nimble enough, owing to the fact that it has six thrusters – that’s two to three more than most ROVs (remotely operated underwater vehicles).
Four of these are horizontal, and two are vertical, giving it five axes of movement: forward and back, up and down, right and left, yaw and roll. The roll axis will automatically adjust in response to the IMU (inertial measurement unit) states.
As well as recording in 4K at 25fps or 30fps, it can also record in 1080p Full HD and in 720p HD, should you want smaller file sizes at the expense of some loss of detail.
That’s the imaging side of it, but what about the manoeuvrability? It’s easily nimble enough, owing to the fact that it has six thrusters – that’s two to three more than most ROVs (remotely operated underwater vehicles).
Four of these are horizontal, and two are vertical, giving it five axes of movement: forward and back, up and down, right and left, yaw and roll. The roll axis will automatically adjust in response to the IMU (inertial measurement unit) states.
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free offer for drone media followers
*** Complimentary report: Commercial drones in the UAE ***
Dear subscriber,
We recently put together a report on how various government organisations including DEWA, Dubai Police, RTA and more have been utilising drones to improve their daily operations.
Download the report now to gain insights into how the Middle East is adopting UAV technology and utilising it for various activities including military and security operations, survey and inspection activities, air raids and reconnaissance missions, monitoring wildlife activities, waste management and rapid emergency response just to name a few.
Want to learn more?
Join us at the UAS Forum hosted by Dubai Police and Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, from 16-17 October at Palazzo Versace Hotel, Dubai, to learn more about how your business can benefit from UAV technology.
Some of the companies sharing their experience using drones include:
Download the agenda now>>
HURRY! Special 10% discount for Drones Media members – view the pricing and register online now.
(You will need your credit card at the time of booking)
I look forward to meeting you in Dubai in October.
Kind regards,
Andrea Fernandes
Conference Director
IQPC Middle East
Tel: +971 4 364 2975
Email: enquiry@iqpc.ae
We recently put together a report on how various government organisations including DEWA, Dubai Police, RTA and more have been utilising drones to improve their daily operations.
Download the report now to gain insights into how the Middle East is adopting UAV technology and utilising it for various activities including military and security operations, survey and inspection activities, air raids and reconnaissance missions, monitoring wildlife activities, waste management and rapid emergency response just to name a few.
Want to learn more?
Join us at the UAS Forum hosted by Dubai Police and Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, from 16-17 October at Palazzo Versace Hotel, Dubai, to learn more about how your business can benefit from UAV technology.
Some of the companies sharing their experience using drones include:
- DEWA
- Dubai Civil Defense
- Consolidated Contractors Company
- Telecom Regulatory Authority, UAE
- IATA
- Ministry of Infrastructure and Development, UAE
- ABC News
- And more…
Download the agenda now>>
HURRY! Special 10% discount for Drones Media members – view the pricing and register online now.
(You will need your credit card at the time of booking)
I look forward to meeting you in Dubai in October.
Kind regards,
Andrea Fernandes
Conference Director
IQPC Middle East
Tel: +971 4 364 2975
Email: enquiry@iqpc.ae
breaking news!!!!
PRESS RELEASE! Converticopter is BORN.
VTOL AEROSPACE to expand product portfolio with new VTOL UAVs called Converticopters™
January 23, 2018 (Hayward, CA) – VTOL AEROSPACE (formerly Elytron Aircraft LLC) is introducing a new line of UAV products called Converticopters, adding unmanned versions to its manned convertiplanes.
Since its creation in 2013, VTOL AEROSPACE has made extensive use of flying proof-of-concepts at different scales, going from compact unmanned test vehicles up to a 28-ft manned prototype.
Putting these test vehicles through their paces, meaning flying them in real conditions at a runway, has provided invaluable engineering data and experience, confirming the flight qualities of its patented technology, which blends the features of a tilt-wing inside a fixed box-wing.
The conclusion of a deep-dive evaluation of this platform was completed using a 20-lb scale model unmanned aircraft and applying a battery of tests, including comprehensive CFD simulations in and out of ground effect (IGE/OGE), high-speed tests on moving rig, wind tunnel tests conducted at NASA Ames, and free-air test flights. This has led to the collection and compilation of 100s of performance data points, allowing the company to fully qualify the airframe after such an extended evaluation phase and getting it ready for scale production.
VTOL AEROSPACE is excited to announce the launch of the UAV Converticopter™ line (CVC), ideal for several markets that require both VTOL support and also long-endurance flights with the ability to fly in any type of weather and wind conditions, such as Air Surveillance, Border Patrol, Search & Rescue etc...
The airframe was optimized for this typical flight pattern:
It was verified and corroborated through systematic simulations and flight tests, that the production airframe would benefit from an L/D ratio above 15.0 at loitering speeds, allowing very efficient and extended flight time.
The company highlights the features of a compact Converticopter version (CVC96) with a wingspan of 8-ft, allowing loiter flights up to 1.5 hours, only on battery power alone, and beyond 5 hours with an electric hybrid power plant. Larger payload sizes and longer flight times may be achieved by scaling up the airframe, and its power source, up to 40 ft in wingspan.
Additional CVC models with various wingspans may be offered by manufacturing partners, who are to subscribe to a manufacturing license agreement.
VTOL AEROSPACE recognizes the need to support new emerging markets with specifically tailored UAVs, using custom-built payloads, and has created a dedicated sales channel that will be led by newly appointed Director of Marketing and Sales,
Craig Davidenko, a Drone Marketing Industry Veteran.
We invite interested parties to contact, visit our new website at www.converticopter.com or check our extended flight videos on our YouTube Flight Videos Vault.
January 23, 2018 (Hayward, CA) – VTOL AEROSPACE (formerly Elytron Aircraft LLC) is introducing a new line of UAV products called Converticopters, adding unmanned versions to its manned convertiplanes.
Since its creation in 2013, VTOL AEROSPACE has made extensive use of flying proof-of-concepts at different scales, going from compact unmanned test vehicles up to a 28-ft manned prototype.
Putting these test vehicles through their paces, meaning flying them in real conditions at a runway, has provided invaluable engineering data and experience, confirming the flight qualities of its patented technology, which blends the features of a tilt-wing inside a fixed box-wing.
The conclusion of a deep-dive evaluation of this platform was completed using a 20-lb scale model unmanned aircraft and applying a battery of tests, including comprehensive CFD simulations in and out of ground effect (IGE/OGE), high-speed tests on moving rig, wind tunnel tests conducted at NASA Ames, and free-air test flights. This has led to the collection and compilation of 100s of performance data points, allowing the company to fully qualify the airframe after such an extended evaluation phase and getting it ready for scale production.
VTOL AEROSPACE is excited to announce the launch of the UAV Converticopter™ line (CVC), ideal for several markets that require both VTOL support and also long-endurance flights with the ability to fly in any type of weather and wind conditions, such as Air Surveillance, Border Patrol, Search & Rescue etc...
The airframe was optimized for this typical flight pattern:
- Vertical take-off with considerable payload
- Self-stabilizing and self-rectifying hover flight transition
- Rapid and safe conversion to conventional flight
- Adaptive flight patterns based on the selected mission, including low-speed loitering.
- Extended flight time due to a low-drag, high-lift airframe
- Ability to land vertically any time in the midst and/or at the end of the mission.
It was verified and corroborated through systematic simulations and flight tests, that the production airframe would benefit from an L/D ratio above 15.0 at loitering speeds, allowing very efficient and extended flight time.
The company highlights the features of a compact Converticopter version (CVC96) with a wingspan of 8-ft, allowing loiter flights up to 1.5 hours, only on battery power alone, and beyond 5 hours with an electric hybrid power plant. Larger payload sizes and longer flight times may be achieved by scaling up the airframe, and its power source, up to 40 ft in wingspan.
Additional CVC models with various wingspans may be offered by manufacturing partners, who are to subscribe to a manufacturing license agreement.
VTOL AEROSPACE recognizes the need to support new emerging markets with specifically tailored UAVs, using custom-built payloads, and has created a dedicated sales channel that will be led by newly appointed Director of Marketing and Sales,
Craig Davidenko, a Drone Marketing Industry Veteran.
We invite interested parties to contact, visit our new website at www.converticopter.com or check our extended flight videos on our YouTube Flight Videos Vault.
- Craig Davidenko
- UAV Marketing and Sales Director
- CraigD@Converticopter.com
- 912-398-7245
- Savannah, Ga USA
- Shenzhen China
"We are proud and thankful to those who have gone before us"!
NASA Langley – 100 Years: Something happened 100 years ago that changed forever the way we fly, the way we explore space and how we study our home planet. That something was the establishment of what is now NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, which commemorates its 100th anniversary on July 17, 2017.
2017 - Mission Critical Investments will catapult drone sales
welcome to shenzhen - ground zero for drones worldwide!
ELF II - VRDrone : HD Video Streaming Nano Drone
ELF II-VRDrone is a mini selfie drone controlled by smartphone.
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ELF II-VR Drone is a mini selfie drone controlled by smartphone. It is ultra-portable, safe and easy to you.Multiple creative designs make ELF the most professional toy drone. With it, you can enjoy multi-rotor drone, virtual reality and VR fight experience. ELF releases your hands by using smartphone-based gesture control mode, with the G-sensor integrated. Carrying 720P HD Wi-Fi camera, ELF takes amazing selfies and allows social sharing in real time. VR mode lets you enjoy the 3D first-person view(FPV). ELF II is an easy, intelligent, selfie, mini, duarable drone which is our super recommend.
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Ehang - is sky the limit?
A drone that can deliver organs to hospitals!
Tuesday, 31 May 2016 | 1:08 AM ET
Derrick Xiong, co-Founder of EHang, describes how the firm is partnering with United Therapeutics to use unmanned aerial vehicles for delivering organs from production facilities to hospitals for transplantation.
Tuesday, 31 May 2016 | 1:08 AM ET
Derrick Xiong, co-Founder of EHang, describes how the firm is partnering with United Therapeutics to use unmanned aerial vehicles for delivering organs from production facilities to hospitals for transplantation.
cascadia rising - Real World "mission critical" exercise
June 6 - 11, 2016
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Published on Jun 7, 2016Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ)
A Joint FEMA-OEM Catastrophic Earthquake and Tsunami Functional Exercise June 2016 The Exercise Scenario |
Science points to a large 8.0-9.0 magnitude Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) earthquake ripping across the 800-mile CSZ fault line on average once every 200 to 500 years.
The last major CSZ earthquake and tsunami occurred in 1700. Recent subduction zone fault earthquakes around the world underscore the similar challenges we will face when the next CSZ earthquake and tsunami occurs in our region:
Indonesia (2004): M9.1; 228,000 deaths
Chile (2010): M8.8; 500 deaths
Northeast Japan (2011): M9.0; 18,000 deaths.
Conducting successful life-saving and life-sustaining response operations in the aftermath of a Cascadia Subduction Zone disaster will hinge on the effective coordination and integration of governments at all levels – cities, counties, state agencies, federal officials, the military, tribal nations – as well as non-government organizations and the private sector. One of the primary goals of Cascadia Rising is to train and test this whole community approach to complex disaster operations together as a joint team.
The culminating event will be a four-day functional exercise to occur June 7-10, 2016. Emergency Operations and Coordination Centers (EOC/ECCs) at all levels of government and the private sector will activate to coordinate simulated field response operations both within their jurisdictions and also with neighboring communities, state EOCs, FEMA, and major military commands.
Communications Academy Presentations
There are two Cascadia Rising presentations scheduled for Communications Academy on April 9-10. These will provide the latest information on the Cascadia Rising exercise and the amateur radio role.
“PLANNING FOR THE CASCADIA RISING EXERCISE” --
For ARES/RACES/ACS leaders including DEC’s, EC’s, RO, Regional RO’s, ACS team leaders, Government, Tribal, and NGO Emergency Managers.
This session will cover all aspects of the Amateur Radio Service (ARS) play/conduct/control during the “CASCADIA RISING” Exercise including the simultaneous ARS COMEX “WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS”. Topics will include development of local documentation (CSZ earthquake playbooks, ICS 205/217 development), regional nets, ISNAP, Winlink, RMS Express, HF Voice Nets, and handling Health and welfare Traffic).
“CASCADIA RISING CATASTROPHIC EARTHQUAKE DRILL JUNE 2016 -
IS AMATEUR RADIO READY?"
This is a general session for all attendees and will review overall exercise preparations and specifically Amateur Radio Service (ARS) preparations for “CASCADIA RISING” – The Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake drill and the simultaneous ARS COMEX “WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS” scheduled for June 7-10, 2016. Topics included will be a review of lead up activities, results of 5th Saturday and Fall/Spring SETs, Extent of play, the ARS COMMEX “WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS”, the overall Exercise Plan, Concepts of Communication Outages to be employed during the drill, and the development of ARS local documentation. This session will also cover the use of Winlink, RMS express/ISNAP forms, HF nets, VHF and HF data traffic, repeaters, VHF/UHF simplex, and interactions with the broadcast media.
Indonesia (2004): M9.1; 228,000 deaths
Chile (2010): M8.8; 500 deaths
Northeast Japan (2011): M9.0; 18,000 deaths.
Conducting successful life-saving and life-sustaining response operations in the aftermath of a Cascadia Subduction Zone disaster will hinge on the effective coordination and integration of governments at all levels – cities, counties, state agencies, federal officials, the military, tribal nations – as well as non-government organizations and the private sector. One of the primary goals of Cascadia Rising is to train and test this whole community approach to complex disaster operations together as a joint team.
The culminating event will be a four-day functional exercise to occur June 7-10, 2016. Emergency Operations and Coordination Centers (EOC/ECCs) at all levels of government and the private sector will activate to coordinate simulated field response operations both within their jurisdictions and also with neighboring communities, state EOCs, FEMA, and major military commands.
Communications Academy Presentations
There are two Cascadia Rising presentations scheduled for Communications Academy on April 9-10. These will provide the latest information on the Cascadia Rising exercise and the amateur radio role.
“PLANNING FOR THE CASCADIA RISING EXERCISE” --
For ARES/RACES/ACS leaders including DEC’s, EC’s, RO, Regional RO’s, ACS team leaders, Government, Tribal, and NGO Emergency Managers.
This session will cover all aspects of the Amateur Radio Service (ARS) play/conduct/control during the “CASCADIA RISING” Exercise including the simultaneous ARS COMEX “WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS”. Topics will include development of local documentation (CSZ earthquake playbooks, ICS 205/217 development), regional nets, ISNAP, Winlink, RMS Express, HF Voice Nets, and handling Health and welfare Traffic).
“CASCADIA RISING CATASTROPHIC EARTHQUAKE DRILL JUNE 2016 -
IS AMATEUR RADIO READY?"
This is a general session for all attendees and will review overall exercise preparations and specifically Amateur Radio Service (ARS) preparations for “CASCADIA RISING” – The Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake drill and the simultaneous ARS COMEX “WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS” scheduled for June 7-10, 2016. Topics included will be a review of lead up activities, results of 5th Saturday and Fall/Spring SETs, Extent of play, the ARS COMMEX “WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS”, the overall Exercise Plan, Concepts of Communication Outages to be employed during the drill, and the development of ARS local documentation. This session will also cover the use of Winlink, RMS express/ISNAP forms, HF nets, VHF and HF data traffic, repeaters, VHF/UHF simplex, and interactions with the broadcast media.
ehang 184 - World's 1st Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (AAV)
EHang 184, the world's first electric, personal Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (AAV) that will achieve humanity's long-standing dream of easy, everyday flight for short-to-medium distances. Ehang.com
drones - machines of the future!
When you hear the word "drone," you probably think of something either very useful or very scary. But could they have aesthetic value? Autonomous systems expert Raffaello D'Andrea develops flying machines, and his latest projects are pushing the boundaries of autonomous flight — from a flying wing that can hover and recover from disturbance to an eight-propeller craft that's ambivalent to orientation ... to a swarm of tiny coordinated micro-quadcopters. Prepare to be dazzled by a dreamy, swirling array of flying machines as they dance like fireflies above the TED stage.
fpv - Drone Racing
It’s been built—will they come? We think so!
The DRL, while still in stealth mode, announced back in August that Stephen Ross, the owner of the Miami Dolphins, had invested $1 million in the league through his investment firm RSE Ventures. Today, the DRL said it had secured funding from a range of new sources to get its league off the ground. Investments were made by CAA Ventures—the venture capital arm of the talent agency Creative Artists Agency—Lux Capital, and Hearst Ventures, the investment arm of the media company that owns multiple TV channels, magazines like Esquire and Car & Driver, and a stake in ESPN—all outlets that might help take a new technology-based sport to the right audiences. The DRL confirmed to Quartz that it had raised “more than $8 million” in funding to date, including the previously announced $1 million RSE investment.
The DRL, while still in stealth mode, announced back in August that Stephen Ross, the owner of the Miami Dolphins, had invested $1 million in the league through his investment firm RSE Ventures. Today, the DRL said it had secured funding from a range of new sources to get its league off the ground. Investments were made by CAA Ventures—the venture capital arm of the talent agency Creative Artists Agency—Lux Capital, and Hearst Ventures, the investment arm of the media company that owns multiple TV channels, magazines like Esquire and Car & Driver, and a stake in ESPN—all outlets that might help take a new technology-based sport to the right audiences. The DRL confirmed to Quartz that it had raised “more than $8 million” in funding to date, including the previously announced $1 million RSE investment.
The league isn’t the only group trying to move drone racing from a hobby to a commercially viable sport. Aerial Sports League, a competing drone-racing league, told Quartz at the Maker Faire in New York in October, that it’s looking into creating a television show for its races, as well as racing at geek-friendly events like Maker Faires and comic book conventions, plus corporate events. And Scot Refsland, the organizer behind last year’s Drone Nationals, is working on a bigger and better competition this year called the Drone Worlds, to be set in Hawaii in October.
Huge announcement coming from drone Media in 2016
DJI opens flagship store in shenzhen
los angeles drone expo - success
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The International Drone Expo held in Los Angeles was a huge success. Drone Manufacturers from all over the Globe showed off their new products and software applications. There were drones available for the hobbyist as well as the commercial application side. The Drone use that the mass public understands is just the tip of the iceberg. New technologies are enabling drones to complete tasks that are highly dangerous for humans. There are drones built to string power lines, drones to spay crops, drones for security, drones for thermal imaging and drones for search and rescue. As the USA becomes more educated about what drones offer and the safety they provide it is the hope of the Drone and UAV community that restrictions will be modified by common sense approach and allow for future technologies to present themselves.
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Tianjin Tanggu Massive Explosions Live on August 14 Early Morning
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Published on Aug 14, 2015. MMC UAVs disaster emergency support team arrived Tianjin explosion live to videography the explosion, after 30 hours later, aerial the accident scene after the explosion, the scene is a mess, smoke and debris everywhere, nearby residents have been evacuated, the air filled with the pungent smell. A few cars through the high-speed when the explosion happened has been distorted. Behind the explosion live, the bell tower forever fixed in 11:36 (the explosion time)...
Thanks for firefighters fighting in Tianjin explosion, pray for the victims! |
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Aerial videography provide by MMC disaster emergency support team:
Website: mmcuav.com Phone: +86 0755-86075664 Email: mmcuav@gmail.com |
MMCUAV.COM
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Drone Media is the premier global resource for drone news, drone journalism, drone technology, and all things drone. Sign up for your own Drone Media webpage. |
DroneMedia.com is now offering to tell your story through your own company webpage on our site! We have had 100's of requests from companies all over the world wanting to share their business information through our platform. So, after 6 months of beta testing we have finally retooled and are ready to use our "MEGAPHONE" to help market people and companies that are involved in drone manufacturing, drone software development, drone imaging, drone video, drone photography, drone news, drone technologies, drone sales and drone parts.
DroneMedia.com will create a landing page that you have full access to. Our drag and drop editing will enable you to add videos, pictures, upload PDF's or documents and so much more. You have full control - Sign up now for our founders club pricing of less than twenty dollars per month! - The team at DroneMedia.com :-)
DroneMedia.com will create a landing page that you have full access to. Our drag and drop editing will enable you to add videos, pictures, upload PDF's or documents and so much more. You have full control - Sign up now for our founders club pricing of less than twenty dollars per month! - The team at DroneMedia.com :-)
t - Mobile Drone technology
T-Mobile NL wants to register embedded Sims in drones
T - Mobile / Drone Technology
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Wednesday 7 October 2015 | 14:07 CET | News
T-Mobile Netherlands believes flying drones should be equipped with an embedded Sim card. The operator's Drone Technology working group is looking if it possible to inspect mobile sites with a flying camera before technicians go onto the roof.For each flight of an inspection drone, permission must currently be granted by the Dutch Aviation Authority.T-Mobile NL's technical pilot is looking to see if an embedded Sim could simplify the process. The Sim would be used for registration with the airline and telecom authorities. The sim could also have functionalities, such as automatic geofencing, showing the zones where the drones should not fly. T-Mobile NL believes that an embedded Sim could be a way of regulating drones in Europe. Interested parties should contact drone@t-mobile.nl |
Columbia South Carolina Flooding - NBC Drone - Weather Channel
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Records BrokenTropical moisture tied to distant Hurricane Joaquin has contributed to exceptionally heavy rain in Charleston and much of South Carolina. Charleston International Airport reported 11.50 inches of rainfall Saturday, breaking the all-time single-day record of 10.52 inches set Sept. 21, 1998, during a similar setup involving moisture from former Tropical Storm Hermine.
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service in Charleston said the tide peaked at 8.29 feet above mean lower low water at 1:42 p.m. Saturday, the highest level in Charleston Harbor since Hurricane Hugo established the record tide of 12.56 feet on Sept. 21, 1989. (For reference, a tide level of 7 feet signals minor flooding and a level of 8 feet signals the start of major flooding.) “What we are experiencing is an unprecedented event, Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. told Charleston City Paper. "That is the huge amount of rain over a relatively short period of days,” said Riley, who predicted that this month’s rainfall would reach record amounts for Charleston in the month of October. |
“This will eventually pass,” said Mayor Riley. “Our goal right now is just to get everybody through safe and in the most pleasant manner possible.”
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Relentless 101 - Get ready for a "GoPro drone"
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GoPro founder and CEO Nick Woodman confirmed that a GoPro drone was on its way in an interview with our own Matt Burns at Disrupt SF. “Development is on track for the first half of 2016. We have some differentiations that are right in the GoPro alley,” he said.
Other than that, Woodman didn’t give any hint about what this drone will do. But it’s clear that a GoPro drone makes a lot of sense given the company’s camera expertise. |
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For example, GoPro recently released the tiny Hero4 Session. “The Session doesn’t look like a GoPro that we’re used to. We tried to make the smallest, lightest, most convenient GoPro we could ever imagine. It’s waterproof out of the box,” Woodman said.
When it comes to sales, Woodman said that sales are going well but could be even better if the other GoPros weren’t so durable. The Hero4 Silver and the Hero4 Black are still selling well.
As this camera is perfect for a drone given how tiny it is, the conversation naturally shifted toward drone projects. “A drone opens up a perspective for our world that we’ve never seen before,” Woodman said. “I think it’s awe-inspiring to see yourself in the world in that way.” 2016 Will usher in a new "definition" of the ultimate Drone!
When it comes to sales, Woodman said that sales are going well but could be even better if the other GoPros weren’t so durable. The Hero4 Silver and the Hero4 Black are still selling well.
As this camera is perfect for a drone given how tiny it is, the conversation naturally shifted toward drone projects. “A drone opens up a perspective for our world that we’ve never seen before,” Woodman said. “I think it’s awe-inspiring to see yourself in the world in that way.” 2016 Will usher in a new "definition" of the ultimate Drone!
Chinese Drone startup grabs $60M In Funding from Intel
Yuneec Electronic Avaiation
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Intel and Yuneec plan to collaborate on projects, but have not revealed what they are going to develop. This is the third drone startup Intel has invested in so far. The other two are Airware, which makes commercial drone software (and also has its own UAV fund) and PrecisionHawk, a sensor hardware maker and data analysis platform.
The drone market is expected to grow quickly and venture capital firms are pouring funding into startups. According to CB Insights, drone companies had raised $172 million by May 2015, more than the previous three years combined. This means that the consumer drone market is becoming crowded and companies like Yuneec, EHANG, DJI, and U.S. rival 3D Robotics will have to focus on honing UAVs and software for business users. By investing in startups that cover drone hardware, software, and data analysis, Intel looks set to start building an ecosystem that can not only use its semiconductors, but also diversify revenue beyond chips as it recovers from several quarters of slow revenue growth. |
- OVERVIEW Founded 1999
- Founded in Hong Kong in 1999, Yuneec International Co. Ltd. is the world leader in electric aviation. Yuneec’s core technologies power its manned aircraft as well as its Aerial Photography & Video Systems (APV) and its market leading line of radio controlled aircraft for the hobby market.
Sony's Enterprise drone due 2016
The buzz surrounding Sony’s unveiling of a drone prototype Monday — the fruit of a joint venture called Aerosense between Sony and Tokyo-based startup ZMP — was the latest sign that the company’s turnaround attempts are continuing to gain traction in the markets.
Just last month, Sony reported that profits tripled in Q1 after six years of losses. A renewed focus on its chip sensors and video games business seems to be paying off.
Investors seemed to share that optimism today as Sony’s stock rallied early — rising over 6 percent — the biggest intraday movement since February, though it traded lower in the day as a wide range of Asian tech stocks fell. The initial surge seemed to indicate that investors were finding reason to be optimistic about Sony’s future again.
Just last month, Sony reported that profits tripled in Q1 after six years of losses. A renewed focus on its chip sensors and video games business seems to be paying off.
Investors seemed to share that optimism today as Sony’s stock rallied early — rising over 6 percent — the biggest intraday movement since February, though it traded lower in the day as a wide range of Asian tech stocks fell. The initial surge seemed to indicate that investors were finding reason to be optimistic about Sony’s future again.
FAA: Drone sightings on pace to quadruple this year
Article by Bart Jansen, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – Aircraft pilots are reporting a dramatic increase in drone sightings to the Federal Aviation Administration, with the number on pace to quadruple for the year, increasing concerns of a potentially dangerous collision.
On Sunday, four airline crews reported seeing drones while approaching Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey at 2,000 to 3,000 feet in the air. All landed safely without taking evasive action.
Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, a retired US Airways pilot who made an emergency landing on the Hudson River in New York after geese knocked out the engines of his Airbus A320 in January 2009, said drones with hard batteries and electronics worried him even more than lighter, softer birds.
"It could do great damage and could be catastrophic," said Sullenberger, who is now a safety consultant and best-selling author.
Pilots from a variety of aircraft reported 650 drone sightings this year through Aug. 9, compared with 238 sightings in all of 2014, the FAA announced Thursday.
“It’s a startling number,” said Steve Marks, a Miami aviation lawyer, who said airline pilots might not see all the drones flying around them while concentrating on landing at 150 to 200 mph. “It’s going to exacerbate an already dangerous situation.”
The Global Gateway Alliance, an advocacy group for New York-area airports, urged the FAA to better enforce no-fly zones and require that drones be equipped with programming that prevents them from entering restricted areas.
“When it comes to our airports, safety has to come first,” said Joe Sitt, the alliance’s founder and chairman. “It is past time for the FAA to step up and protect the nation’s most crowded airspace for the 117 million passengers who use it every year.”
Firefighters battling western wildfires have grounded aircraft several times for safety reasons after spotting drones nearby. During a June wildfire in the San Bernardino Mountains in California, firefighting aircraft spotted a drone 500 feet away from planes flying higher than 10,000 feet. A forest aviation officer at the scene said it wasn't a "near miss with respect to an incident, but certainly an aircraft in our airspace that we were not prepared for."
FAA is developing comprehensive rules for drones. For now, drone hobbyists must stay below 400 feet and commercial drone pilots must stay below 500 feet – and both must avoid flying within 5 miles of an airport unless they have the air-traffic control tower's permission. Remote drone pilots must also keep their aircraft within sight and fly only during the day.
The FAA works with local law enforcement to investigate drone sightings. Despite the threat of civil and criminal penalties, enforcement can be difficult for authorities on the ground to mobilize fast enough to find the remote drone pilot.
The FAA is working with the commercial industry and hobbyists on an educational campaign called "Know Before You Fly," to notify pilots where they can operate within the rules. Despite the effort, Sullenberger said a smaller number of drone pilots just don't care.
"It enables a few people to do stupid, reckless things with them," he said. "It's of great concern."
Dave Mathewson, executive director of the 176,000-member Academy of Model Aeronautics, said the FAA should enforce its rules better against reckless drones and finalize comprehensive regulations.
“We support the FAA taking a more aggressive approach to assessing civil penalties against operators violating those rules," he said.
Some legislators say new laws and regulations are needed.
"The new data released by the FAA should sound the alarm" for greater regulations, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said after drones delayed firefighting flights last month and after a medical helicopter nearly collided Wednesday with a drone above Fresno.
On Sunday, four airline crews reported seeing drones while approaching Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey at 2,000 to 3,000 feet in the air. All landed safely without taking evasive action.
Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, a retired US Airways pilot who made an emergency landing on the Hudson River in New York after geese knocked out the engines of his Airbus A320 in January 2009, said drones with hard batteries and electronics worried him even more than lighter, softer birds.
"It could do great damage and could be catastrophic," said Sullenberger, who is now a safety consultant and best-selling author.
Pilots from a variety of aircraft reported 650 drone sightings this year through Aug. 9, compared with 238 sightings in all of 2014, the FAA announced Thursday.
“It’s a startling number,” said Steve Marks, a Miami aviation lawyer, who said airline pilots might not see all the drones flying around them while concentrating on landing at 150 to 200 mph. “It’s going to exacerbate an already dangerous situation.”
The Global Gateway Alliance, an advocacy group for New York-area airports, urged the FAA to better enforce no-fly zones and require that drones be equipped with programming that prevents them from entering restricted areas.
“When it comes to our airports, safety has to come first,” said Joe Sitt, the alliance’s founder and chairman. “It is past time for the FAA to step up and protect the nation’s most crowded airspace for the 117 million passengers who use it every year.”
Firefighters battling western wildfires have grounded aircraft several times for safety reasons after spotting drones nearby. During a June wildfire in the San Bernardino Mountains in California, firefighting aircraft spotted a drone 500 feet away from planes flying higher than 10,000 feet. A forest aviation officer at the scene said it wasn't a "near miss with respect to an incident, but certainly an aircraft in our airspace that we were not prepared for."
FAA is developing comprehensive rules for drones. For now, drone hobbyists must stay below 400 feet and commercial drone pilots must stay below 500 feet – and both must avoid flying within 5 miles of an airport unless they have the air-traffic control tower's permission. Remote drone pilots must also keep their aircraft within sight and fly only during the day.
The FAA works with local law enforcement to investigate drone sightings. Despite the threat of civil and criminal penalties, enforcement can be difficult for authorities on the ground to mobilize fast enough to find the remote drone pilot.
The FAA is working with the commercial industry and hobbyists on an educational campaign called "Know Before You Fly," to notify pilots where they can operate within the rules. Despite the effort, Sullenberger said a smaller number of drone pilots just don't care.
"It enables a few people to do stupid, reckless things with them," he said. "It's of great concern."
Dave Mathewson, executive director of the 176,000-member Academy of Model Aeronautics, said the FAA should enforce its rules better against reckless drones and finalize comprehensive regulations.
“We support the FAA taking a more aggressive approach to assessing civil penalties against operators violating those rules," he said.
Some legislators say new laws and regulations are needed.
"The new data released by the FAA should sound the alarm" for greater regulations, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said after drones delayed firefighting flights last month and after a medical helicopter nearly collided Wednesday with a drone above Fresno.
Drone Maker 3d robitics raises $50 Million in latest round
Photo via Chris Anderson & 3D Robotics
By Frank Bi and Ryan Mac
Less than two weeks after the Federal Aviation Administration unveiled its proposed regulations for commercial drones, one California-based drone company sealed its latest round of financing.
North America’s largest personal drone manufacturer, 3D Robotics, raised $50 million on Wednesday led by Qualcomm QCOM +0.69% Ventures. A valuation was not disclosed. The round was the largest amount raised by any U.S.-based consumer drone company to date.
The company intends to use the funds to expand its product development in both its hardware and software products. 3D Robotics will also work with Qualcomm to utilize the company’s Snapdragon processors.
“The incredible pace of innovation in the smartphone industry is transforming many adjacent industries, including drones. By working with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., we can bring advanced computing to the skies at an increasing pace” said 3D Robotics’ cofounder and former Wired Magazineeditor, Chris Anderson in a statement. “Such multi-gigahertz Linux-based onboard computing platforms, combined with state-of-the-art cameras and other sensors and wireless technologies, will allow us to create next-gen drones that are smarter, easier, and safer than ever before."
A financial document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, showed that the company was only looking to raise $40 million in the round. According to the document, it had sold just over $32 million worth of shares. It’s unclear how 3D Robotics exceeded the $40 million it originally expected to raise. A company spokesperson has not said how they exceeded their original funding expectation.
The $50 million round, first reported by VentureWire, boosts 3D Robotics’ total funding to more than $85 million to date.
3D Robotics produces a range of consumer drones for photography and mapping. The company also sells drone parts and accessories, including an open source autopilot that’s well-liked with the DIY drone crowd. In addition to hardware, 3D Robotics also maintains a popular drone how-to website.
Anderson and Jordi Munoz founded 3D Robotics in 2009 depite never meeting in person. Munoz, then a 20-year-old Mexican immigrant living in Los Angeles, first met the magazine editor virtually through a forum for drone hobbyists.
Impressed with a prototype Munoz had posted to the forum, Anderson, who is also the creator of the forum, reached out to Munoz to offer advice and ended up funding his prototype. From there, the two regularly exchanged emails and correspondence before starting the company.
Now 3D Robotics has offices in three cities in addition to a factory in Tijuana. The company is expected to reach sales of $50 million this year according to the BBC.
Meanwhile, the drone industry in the U.S. is expected to have an economic impact of more than $13.6 billion in the first three years of integration, but current laws prohibit the use of drones commercially without an exemption, of which a total of less than 50 have been granted thus far.
New regulations proposed by the FAA earlier this month would allow commercial drone applications to exist on the condition that the pilot abides by a set of flight restrictions and other safety guidelines in addition to obtaining a specialized license.
Less than two weeks after the Federal Aviation Administration unveiled its proposed regulations for commercial drones, one California-based drone company sealed its latest round of financing.
North America’s largest personal drone manufacturer, 3D Robotics, raised $50 million on Wednesday led by Qualcomm QCOM +0.69% Ventures. A valuation was not disclosed. The round was the largest amount raised by any U.S.-based consumer drone company to date.
The company intends to use the funds to expand its product development in both its hardware and software products. 3D Robotics will also work with Qualcomm to utilize the company’s Snapdragon processors.
“The incredible pace of innovation in the smartphone industry is transforming many adjacent industries, including drones. By working with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., we can bring advanced computing to the skies at an increasing pace” said 3D Robotics’ cofounder and former Wired Magazineeditor, Chris Anderson in a statement. “Such multi-gigahertz Linux-based onboard computing platforms, combined with state-of-the-art cameras and other sensors and wireless technologies, will allow us to create next-gen drones that are smarter, easier, and safer than ever before."
A financial document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, showed that the company was only looking to raise $40 million in the round. According to the document, it had sold just over $32 million worth of shares. It’s unclear how 3D Robotics exceeded the $40 million it originally expected to raise. A company spokesperson has not said how they exceeded their original funding expectation.
The $50 million round, first reported by VentureWire, boosts 3D Robotics’ total funding to more than $85 million to date.
3D Robotics produces a range of consumer drones for photography and mapping. The company also sells drone parts and accessories, including an open source autopilot that’s well-liked with the DIY drone crowd. In addition to hardware, 3D Robotics also maintains a popular drone how-to website.
Anderson and Jordi Munoz founded 3D Robotics in 2009 depite never meeting in person. Munoz, then a 20-year-old Mexican immigrant living in Los Angeles, first met the magazine editor virtually through a forum for drone hobbyists.
Impressed with a prototype Munoz had posted to the forum, Anderson, who is also the creator of the forum, reached out to Munoz to offer advice and ended up funding his prototype. From there, the two regularly exchanged emails and correspondence before starting the company.
Now 3D Robotics has offices in three cities in addition to a factory in Tijuana. The company is expected to reach sales of $50 million this year according to the BBC.
Meanwhile, the drone industry in the U.S. is expected to have an economic impact of more than $13.6 billion in the first three years of integration, but current laws prohibit the use of drones commercially without an exemption, of which a total of less than 50 have been granted thus far.
New regulations proposed by the FAA earlier this month would allow commercial drone applications to exist on the condition that the pilot abides by a set of flight restrictions and other safety guidelines in addition to obtaining a specialized license.
DUBAI Drone news - uae drones for good award:
"Wadi drones makes conversationists' job easier"
- By Janice Ponce de Leon, Staff Reporter (Gulf News)
- Published: 19:29 February 7, 2015
Shaikh Mohammad, Shaikh Hamdan and Shaikh Mansour awarding the first prize of $1 million in the international category to Collision-Resistant Drone built by Swiss company Flyability.
Dubai: Park rangers Sami and Ali will soon no longer need to hike the Wadi Wurayah — an area almost as big as Ajman — to get data from camera traps at the park. The award-winning Wadi Drone can now do it for them in a fraction of cost and time.
The Wadi Drone won the national category of the first UAE Drones for Good Award on Saturday. His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, presented the award to the winners on Saturday.
Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs and Mohammad Abdullah Al Gergawi, UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs were present at the event.
Four students and two faculty from the New York University (NYU) Abu Dhabi led by Matt Karau and Martin Slosarik worked on the Wadi Drone, giving them a cash prize of Dh1 million.
The 2.2-kg drone can fly for up to 40km around the Wadi Wurayah National Park, the UAE’s first mountain protected national park. The drone collects data from 120 camera traps that capture images of wild animals at the park.
So far, the camera traps have taken images of Blandford fox, Gordon’s wildcat, hedgehogs, Caracal lynx and goats. The park rangers and conservationists so far has identified and listed 860 species in the national park since 2009. Of these, there are 208 plants, 19 mammals, 17 reptiles, 3 fishes, 2 amphibians, and 94 birds, while the rest are invertebrates.
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The Wadi Drone does this by hovering over the 212-square-kilometre park to collect the data from the air. This will eliminate the need for Sami and Ali to hike up the park to manually get the data, which eliminates a lot of dangers and saves on costs.
“The time it takes for us to hike Wadi Wurayah National Park is two days but it will just be a matter of a few hours for the drone,” Sami Ullah Majeed, 26, park ranger, told Gulf News.
During the hikes, the two park rangers from Pakistan and Uganda are exposed to extreme weather conditions like temperatures ranging 47 degrees Celsius during peak of summer, dehydration. Among other things.
“[With the drone], danger is reduced, no dehydration, no risks of falling off cliffs, nor encountering poachers. So many dangers are reduced dramatically so we can focus on other things like conserving nature, doing more research, and making the camera traps more effective,” Majeed said.
The 2.2kg-Wadi Drone has a flight duration of up to 1.5 hours and can collect all kinds of data including salinity and atmospheric data around the park.
Twice a year, the park spends Dh1 million to collect the data but with the drone, it can now be done monthly for one-tenth the cost.
At present, it has collected 380 camera trap photos of animals, including hard-to-find ones, at the park.
The Wadi Drone will be optimised over the next three months and will be deployed within nine months.
“Conservation is an important aspect of life. We need to conserve nature because that’s what makes us humans. We have to conserve nature for the future,” Sami said.
For the international category, the world’s first Collision-Resistant drone by Swiss company, Flyability, won the first prize of $1 million (Dh3.67 million).
The 400-gram drone can be deployed in hard-to-reach places during fires and disasters, which are usually done by search and rescue officials that could endanger their lives.
Etisalat’s drone won in the government category. The drone can fly to areas such as desert and mountains that have very low signal and increase it right there and there.
The winners were chosen from 800 entries from 57 countries. The winning drones need to be deployable within the next two years.
The Wadi Drone won the national category of the first UAE Drones for Good Award on Saturday. His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, presented the award to the winners on Saturday.
Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs and Mohammad Abdullah Al Gergawi, UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs were present at the event.
Four students and two faculty from the New York University (NYU) Abu Dhabi led by Matt Karau and Martin Slosarik worked on the Wadi Drone, giving them a cash prize of Dh1 million.
The 2.2-kg drone can fly for up to 40km around the Wadi Wurayah National Park, the UAE’s first mountain protected national park. The drone collects data from 120 camera traps that capture images of wild animals at the park.
So far, the camera traps have taken images of Blandford fox, Gordon’s wildcat, hedgehogs, Caracal lynx and goats. The park rangers and conservationists so far has identified and listed 860 species in the national park since 2009. Of these, there are 208 plants, 19 mammals, 17 reptiles, 3 fishes, 2 amphibians, and 94 birds, while the rest are invertebrates.
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The Wadi Drone does this by hovering over the 212-square-kilometre park to collect the data from the air. This will eliminate the need for Sami and Ali to hike up the park to manually get the data, which eliminates a lot of dangers and saves on costs.
“The time it takes for us to hike Wadi Wurayah National Park is two days but it will just be a matter of a few hours for the drone,” Sami Ullah Majeed, 26, park ranger, told Gulf News.
During the hikes, the two park rangers from Pakistan and Uganda are exposed to extreme weather conditions like temperatures ranging 47 degrees Celsius during peak of summer, dehydration. Among other things.
“[With the drone], danger is reduced, no dehydration, no risks of falling off cliffs, nor encountering poachers. So many dangers are reduced dramatically so we can focus on other things like conserving nature, doing more research, and making the camera traps more effective,” Majeed said.
The 2.2kg-Wadi Drone has a flight duration of up to 1.5 hours and can collect all kinds of data including salinity and atmospheric data around the park.
Twice a year, the park spends Dh1 million to collect the data but with the drone, it can now be done monthly for one-tenth the cost.
At present, it has collected 380 camera trap photos of animals, including hard-to-find ones, at the park.
The Wadi Drone will be optimised over the next three months and will be deployed within nine months.
“Conservation is an important aspect of life. We need to conserve nature because that’s what makes us humans. We have to conserve nature for the future,” Sami said.
For the international category, the world’s first Collision-Resistant drone by Swiss company, Flyability, won the first prize of $1 million (Dh3.67 million).
The 400-gram drone can be deployed in hard-to-reach places during fires and disasters, which are usually done by search and rescue officials that could endanger their lives.
Etisalat’s drone won in the government category. The drone can fly to areas such as desert and mountains that have very low signal and increase it right there and there.
The winners were chosen from 800 entries from 57 countries. The winning drones need to be deployable within the next two years.
Drone technology now poised to leap into everyday life.
David Murray, dmurray@greatfallstribune.com 9:42 p.m. MST January 30, 2015
Matt Banks of Lewistown inspects a quadcopter at the "Drones on the Farm and Ranch" Friday at the Lewistown Winter Fair.
(Photo: Tribune photo/David Murray)
Say the word “drone” and most people will likely think of one of two things: Either sophisticated unmanned aircraft used by the military for surveillance and to launch missile attacks, or the small hobbyist helicopters that have seemed to come into the habit of crashing onto the White House lawn or into one of Yellowstone’s geothermal features.
However drone technology — or unmanned aerial vehicle technology as it is more appropriately referred to — is now poised to make the leap to everyday commercial applications. And the cutting edge of this new technological wave may be as close as your backyard.
Ever more sophisticated and versatile commercial UAVs are being used by the commercial and motion film industry, law enforcement, for oil and gas exploration and scientific research. Already, real estate companies are employing UAVs to scout commercial and residential properties, and online shopping giant Amazon is actively testing its own UAV package-delivery system.
A Domino’s franchise in the United Kingdom has even developed a UAV capable of delivering two pizzas in the company’s signature Heatwave bags.
But perhaps the biggest industry on the threshold of employing UAV technology in a big way is agriculture.
On Friday, one of the presentations at the Montana Winter Fair in Lewistown was on drone technology and its applications for the farm and ranch.
Arthur Cunningham grew up outside Helena and now works as an aviation consultant for the University of Hawaii. He and other researchers and educators are developing a program training students to set up and operate remotely piloted aircraft systems.
The students Cunningham works with have flow more than 400 missions and are using UAVs to create monitor soil erosion and track the likely path of erupting lava from Hawaii’s Mount Klieauea.matt banks
Cunningham said the greatest attraction of UAV is how inexpensive they are to operate.
“What’s really appealing about them is cost,” he said. “To fly our small aircraft, the biggest cost for day-to-day operations is getting out to the site.”
In other words, it costs more in gas to drive out to a UAV test site than it does to power it. That’s a huge savings over the cost of hiring a manned helicopter, which can be more than $1,200 an hour.
“The aircraft is electric, so by using the solar panels the university has on its roof, the power that we use is entirely free,” Cunningham said. “Not only is cost a factor, I would say the one I concentrate on most is safety.”
UAVs can fly safely only a few feet off of the ground, and anyone who is familiar with aviation knows that the lower a manned aircraft flies from the ground the less room there is for mistakes.
“Removing the risk of having a pilot have a crash is huge,” Cunningham said.
The possibilities seem nearly limitless.
UAV technology is already being used in Japan, where farmers spray pesticides in hilly areas where tractors might roll over. In the U.S., UAV helicopters are being considered for the steep slopes of California vineyards.
UAVs are also gaining popularity on the ranch, where cowboys use them to locate cattle. UAV manufacturer PrecisionHawk is equipping its drones with thermal imagers capable of taking the temperature of an animal. A technologically savvy cowboy can look at a live, real-time screen and tell if one cow in the herd is running a higher temperature than the ones around her.
“Something else as far as cattle ranching is the ability to do fence-line monitoring,” Cunningham added.
Equipped with special “computer vision” programming, UAVs can report back the precise coordinates of a fence-line break or an open gate.
“To be able to have an automated machine fly over miles and miles of fence, and at the end of the day the program will tell you ‘in grid section Bravo 13 there was a break in the fence,’” Cunningham said. “The rancher can go straight to it and doesn’t have to worry about searching.”
Even more impressive, Cunningham and his team are working to develop systems of precision farming. Using special “near infrared cameras” mounted on a UAV, the students and researchers at the University of Hawaii are capable of differentiating between plants that are healthy from those that are sick or dying.
“What the near infrared camera measures is the reflectant light that a healthy plant gives off,” Cunningham said. “A healthy plant will have a strong reflectance, whereas a plant that is dead won’t reflect at all and will show up as a void.
Farmers flying a UAV over their fields could develop specific programs for the precision delivery of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer where they are needed most — all of which could be done using the same UAV that discovered the problem in the first place. Such technology would save time, money and would promote greater crop yields.
From an engineering standpoint, the biggest limiting factor for drones thus far has been the size, weight and the available charge in their batteries. Most commonly available commercial UAVs are limited to less than a half-an-hour flight time, have a range of less than a mile, and a maximum payload capacity of no more than about 5 pounds.
However the biggest obstacle to the widespread commercial use of UAVs has been opposition from the Federal Aviation Administration. Except for a few limited exemptions, U.S. airspace is closed to all commercial UAV operation.
The agency’s biggest concern is manned aircraft safety. America’s skies are already crowed. The prospect adding tens of thousands of lawnmower size UAVs capable of flying thousands of feet into the air and at up to 100 mph has the potential to pose a serious aviation hazard.
Currently, hobbyists are prohibited from flying UAVs higher than 400 feet or within five miles of an airport. Their use is also prohibited in national parks and over populated areas.
To date, the FAA has granted 12 exemptions to companies working to develop commercial applications for UAVs, and all the operators of these craft are required to be licensed manned aircraft pilots.
However the agency is coming under increasing pressure to liberalize its UAV regulations, and is expected to have new guidelines for the legal use of commercial unmanned aerial vehicles in place by October.
One often-expressed concern about a sudden proliferation of UAVs in America’s skies is the effect it could have on personal privacy. Drones are already capable of providing close-ups and vantage points that satellites and aircraft cannot easily obtain.
The Associated Press recently reported on one documentary filmmaker who used a UAV to fly over large commercial hog operations and film them. He then produced an anti-pork industry video showing buildings filled with animals and huge manure pits. The use of the UAV in this case violated both local trespassing and personal privacy laws.
But Cunningham notes that personal privacy issues will continue to be a concern both in the United States and throughout the world whether or not UAV technology becomes commonplace. Today nearly everyone carries a camera phone with them wherever they go.
How many celebrities, politicians and public officials have been caught doing something they shouldn’t in recent years because somebody made a surreptitious high-quality video of it?
“How much scarier is an unmanned aircraft than a camera phone?” Cunningham asked. “If you’re flying a UAV over a property where you don’t have permission you are trespassing — there’s no question about it. If someone is flying over your property you have every right to call the police. However, there is an emotional response and a deficit of education when it comes to unmanned aircraft.”
As Cunningham sees it, the arrival of UAVs for commercial applications is only a matter of time. He predicts that within 10 years their use will be commonplace.
“There are so many people with their business plan printed and ready to go,” Cunningham said of the dozens of inquiries his department receives each week from people seeking more information on UAV technology. “There are so many investors that are ready to sign checks just as soon as the legislation is in place. The surge that we’re going to get when that legislation is in place is just going to be crazy.
“It’s going to be one hell of a ride,” he added.
However drone technology — or unmanned aerial vehicle technology as it is more appropriately referred to — is now poised to make the leap to everyday commercial applications. And the cutting edge of this new technological wave may be as close as your backyard.
Ever more sophisticated and versatile commercial UAVs are being used by the commercial and motion film industry, law enforcement, for oil and gas exploration and scientific research. Already, real estate companies are employing UAVs to scout commercial and residential properties, and online shopping giant Amazon is actively testing its own UAV package-delivery system.
A Domino’s franchise in the United Kingdom has even developed a UAV capable of delivering two pizzas in the company’s signature Heatwave bags.
But perhaps the biggest industry on the threshold of employing UAV technology in a big way is agriculture.
On Friday, one of the presentations at the Montana Winter Fair in Lewistown was on drone technology and its applications for the farm and ranch.
Arthur Cunningham grew up outside Helena and now works as an aviation consultant for the University of Hawaii. He and other researchers and educators are developing a program training students to set up and operate remotely piloted aircraft systems.
The students Cunningham works with have flow more than 400 missions and are using UAVs to create monitor soil erosion and track the likely path of erupting lava from Hawaii’s Mount Klieauea.matt banks
Cunningham said the greatest attraction of UAV is how inexpensive they are to operate.
“What’s really appealing about them is cost,” he said. “To fly our small aircraft, the biggest cost for day-to-day operations is getting out to the site.”
In other words, it costs more in gas to drive out to a UAV test site than it does to power it. That’s a huge savings over the cost of hiring a manned helicopter, which can be more than $1,200 an hour.
“The aircraft is electric, so by using the solar panels the university has on its roof, the power that we use is entirely free,” Cunningham said. “Not only is cost a factor, I would say the one I concentrate on most is safety.”
UAVs can fly safely only a few feet off of the ground, and anyone who is familiar with aviation knows that the lower a manned aircraft flies from the ground the less room there is for mistakes.
“Removing the risk of having a pilot have a crash is huge,” Cunningham said.
The possibilities seem nearly limitless.
UAV technology is already being used in Japan, where farmers spray pesticides in hilly areas where tractors might roll over. In the U.S., UAV helicopters are being considered for the steep slopes of California vineyards.
UAVs are also gaining popularity on the ranch, where cowboys use them to locate cattle. UAV manufacturer PrecisionHawk is equipping its drones with thermal imagers capable of taking the temperature of an animal. A technologically savvy cowboy can look at a live, real-time screen and tell if one cow in the herd is running a higher temperature than the ones around her.
“Something else as far as cattle ranching is the ability to do fence-line monitoring,” Cunningham added.
Equipped with special “computer vision” programming, UAVs can report back the precise coordinates of a fence-line break or an open gate.
“To be able to have an automated machine fly over miles and miles of fence, and at the end of the day the program will tell you ‘in grid section Bravo 13 there was a break in the fence,’” Cunningham said. “The rancher can go straight to it and doesn’t have to worry about searching.”
Even more impressive, Cunningham and his team are working to develop systems of precision farming. Using special “near infrared cameras” mounted on a UAV, the students and researchers at the University of Hawaii are capable of differentiating between plants that are healthy from those that are sick or dying.
“What the near infrared camera measures is the reflectant light that a healthy plant gives off,” Cunningham said. “A healthy plant will have a strong reflectance, whereas a plant that is dead won’t reflect at all and will show up as a void.
Farmers flying a UAV over their fields could develop specific programs for the precision delivery of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer where they are needed most — all of which could be done using the same UAV that discovered the problem in the first place. Such technology would save time, money and would promote greater crop yields.
From an engineering standpoint, the biggest limiting factor for drones thus far has been the size, weight and the available charge in their batteries. Most commonly available commercial UAVs are limited to less than a half-an-hour flight time, have a range of less than a mile, and a maximum payload capacity of no more than about 5 pounds.
However the biggest obstacle to the widespread commercial use of UAVs has been opposition from the Federal Aviation Administration. Except for a few limited exemptions, U.S. airspace is closed to all commercial UAV operation.
The agency’s biggest concern is manned aircraft safety. America’s skies are already crowed. The prospect adding tens of thousands of lawnmower size UAVs capable of flying thousands of feet into the air and at up to 100 mph has the potential to pose a serious aviation hazard.
Currently, hobbyists are prohibited from flying UAVs higher than 400 feet or within five miles of an airport. Their use is also prohibited in national parks and over populated areas.
To date, the FAA has granted 12 exemptions to companies working to develop commercial applications for UAVs, and all the operators of these craft are required to be licensed manned aircraft pilots.
However the agency is coming under increasing pressure to liberalize its UAV regulations, and is expected to have new guidelines for the legal use of commercial unmanned aerial vehicles in place by October.
One often-expressed concern about a sudden proliferation of UAVs in America’s skies is the effect it could have on personal privacy. Drones are already capable of providing close-ups and vantage points that satellites and aircraft cannot easily obtain.
The Associated Press recently reported on one documentary filmmaker who used a UAV to fly over large commercial hog operations and film them. He then produced an anti-pork industry video showing buildings filled with animals and huge manure pits. The use of the UAV in this case violated both local trespassing and personal privacy laws.
But Cunningham notes that personal privacy issues will continue to be a concern both in the United States and throughout the world whether or not UAV technology becomes commonplace. Today nearly everyone carries a camera phone with them wherever they go.
How many celebrities, politicians and public officials have been caught doing something they shouldn’t in recent years because somebody made a surreptitious high-quality video of it?
“How much scarier is an unmanned aircraft than a camera phone?” Cunningham asked. “If you’re flying a UAV over a property where you don’t have permission you are trespassing — there’s no question about it. If someone is flying over your property you have every right to call the police. However, there is an emotional response and a deficit of education when it comes to unmanned aircraft.”
As Cunningham sees it, the arrival of UAVs for commercial applications is only a matter of time. He predicts that within 10 years their use will be commonplace.
“There are so many people with their business plan printed and ready to go,” Cunningham said of the dozens of inquiries his department receives each week from people seeking more information on UAV technology. “There are so many investors that are ready to sign checks just as soon as the legislation is in place. The surge that we’re going to get when that legislation is in place is just going to be crazy.
“It’s going to be one hell of a ride,” he added.
!!! breaking news !!!
cnn cleared to test drones for reporting.
By David Goldman @DavidGoldmanCNN January 12, 2015: 1:29 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
CNN will explore the use of drones for reporting, after receiving special permission from the U.S. government. In the first program of its kind, the FAA will allow CNN to test camera-equipped drones for news gathering and reporting purposes.
CNN has partnered with the Georgia Tech Research Institute to collect data for the program. The FAA said it will analyze that information to develop rules about using drones for news gathering.
"Our aim is to get beyond hobby-grade equipment and to establish what options are available and workable to produce high quality video journalism," said David Vigilante, CNN's senior vice president of legal.
Vigilante said he hopes that the test program leads to the safe and more widespread use of drones in U.S. airspace.
The FAA has restricted drone use in the United States out of fear that they could come in contact with airplanes. Drones could also cause damage or injury by falling out of the sky.
There are no drone pilot licenses, and several drones have come close to making contact with planes -- in October, 41 pilots reported seeing a drone, or unmanned aircraft, during flight, according to the FAA.
As a result, the FAA has set up a handful of largely uninhabited regions across the country where people can test out drones for commercial use. Currently, the agency only allows certain lightweight drones for commercial flights of up to 400 feet.
But the FAA is expected to soften some of the rules this year, as drone technology become more commonplace. Drones can be used in search and rescue operations, and they can be flown into dangerous areas to broadcast news to the public.
"Unmanned aircraft offer news organizations significant opportunities," said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. "We hope this agreement with CNN and the work we are doing with other news organizations and associations will help safely integrate unmanned news gathering technology and operating procedures into the National Airspace System."
Several other companies are making big investments in drones as well. Facebook (FB, Tech30) is hiring people for its drone team. Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) has said it wants to use drones to deliver small packages over short distances. And Google (GOOGL, Tech30)acquired Titan Aerospace, which makes high-altitude, solar-powered drones.
CNN will explore the use of drones for reporting, after receiving special permission from the U.S. government. In the first program of its kind, the FAA will allow CNN to test camera-equipped drones for news gathering and reporting purposes.
CNN has partnered with the Georgia Tech Research Institute to collect data for the program. The FAA said it will analyze that information to develop rules about using drones for news gathering.
"Our aim is to get beyond hobby-grade equipment and to establish what options are available and workable to produce high quality video journalism," said David Vigilante, CNN's senior vice president of legal.
Vigilante said he hopes that the test program leads to the safe and more widespread use of drones in U.S. airspace.
The FAA has restricted drone use in the United States out of fear that they could come in contact with airplanes. Drones could also cause damage or injury by falling out of the sky.
There are no drone pilot licenses, and several drones have come close to making contact with planes -- in October, 41 pilots reported seeing a drone, or unmanned aircraft, during flight, according to the FAA.
As a result, the FAA has set up a handful of largely uninhabited regions across the country where people can test out drones for commercial use. Currently, the agency only allows certain lightweight drones for commercial flights of up to 400 feet.
But the FAA is expected to soften some of the rules this year, as drone technology become more commonplace. Drones can be used in search and rescue operations, and they can be flown into dangerous areas to broadcast news to the public.
"Unmanned aircraft offer news organizations significant opportunities," said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. "We hope this agreement with CNN and the work we are doing with other news organizations and associations will help safely integrate unmanned news gathering technology and operating procedures into the National Airspace System."
Several other companies are making big investments in drones as well. Facebook (FB, Tech30) is hiring people for its drone team. Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) has said it wants to use drones to deliver small packages over short distances. And Google (GOOGL, Tech30)acquired Titan Aerospace, which makes high-altitude, solar-powered drones.
faa grants permits for agriculture, real estate drones
WASHINGTON — Jan 6, 2015, 7:00 PM ET
By JOAN LOWY Associated Press
By JOAN LOWY Associated Press
The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday issued permits to use drones to monitor crops and photograph properties for sale, marking the first time permission has been granted to companies involved agriculture and real estate.
The exemptions to the current ban on commercial drone flights were granted to Advanced Aviation Solutions in Spokane, Washington, for "crop scouting," and to Douglas Trudeau of Tierra Antigua Realty in Tucson, Arizona.
Advanced Aviation Solutions plans to use its 1.5-pound, fixed-wing eBee drone to make photographic measurements of farm fields, determine the health of crops and look for pests. The aim is to save farmers time walking through fields. The drone also can carry sensors that pick up information invisible to the naked eye, which can help determine which fields need watering.
Trudeau's exemption authorizes him to fly a Phantom 2 Vision+ quadcopter to "enhance academic community awareness and augment real estate listing videos," the FAA said.
Real estate companies have been eager to gain permission to use drones to photograph and make videos of pricey properties.
The permits require that drone operations include both a ground "pilot" and an observer, that the pilot have at least an FAA private pilot certificate and a current medical certificate, and that the drone remains within line of sight of the operator at all times.
Before these approvals, the FAA had granted 12 exemptions to 11 companies in the oil and gas, filmmaking and landfill industries.
As of today, the FAA has received 214 requests for exemptions from commercial entities.
The agency is under pressure from Congress, the drone industry and companies that want to use drones to provide broader access to U.S. skies. FAA officials had said they hoped to propose regulations to permit general commercial use of small drones by the end of 2014, but that deadline has slipped.
The exemptions to the current ban on commercial drone flights were granted to Advanced Aviation Solutions in Spokane, Washington, for "crop scouting," and to Douglas Trudeau of Tierra Antigua Realty in Tucson, Arizona.
Advanced Aviation Solutions plans to use its 1.5-pound, fixed-wing eBee drone to make photographic measurements of farm fields, determine the health of crops and look for pests. The aim is to save farmers time walking through fields. The drone also can carry sensors that pick up information invisible to the naked eye, which can help determine which fields need watering.
Trudeau's exemption authorizes him to fly a Phantom 2 Vision+ quadcopter to "enhance academic community awareness and augment real estate listing videos," the FAA said.
Real estate companies have been eager to gain permission to use drones to photograph and make videos of pricey properties.
The permits require that drone operations include both a ground "pilot" and an observer, that the pilot have at least an FAA private pilot certificate and a current medical certificate, and that the drone remains within line of sight of the operator at all times.
Before these approvals, the FAA had granted 12 exemptions to 11 companies in the oil and gas, filmmaking and landfill industries.
As of today, the FAA has received 214 requests for exemptions from commercial entities.
The agency is under pressure from Congress, the drone industry and companies that want to use drones to provide broader access to U.S. skies. FAA officials had said they hoped to propose regulations to permit general commercial use of small drones by the end of 2014, but that deadline has slipped.
drone captures tilting ship loaded with luxury cars off England coast.
Matt Cardy/Getty Images
(LONDON) — Video footage taken from a drone shows a cargo ship loaded with luxury cars tilted at 52 degrees in waters off the coast of England.
The Höegh Osaka, owned by Norwegian company Höegh Autoliners, was heading to Germany Saturday with roughly 1,200 Jaguars and Land Rovers on board, according to Jaguar Land Rover, and also Mini Coopers, according to British media.
Höegh Autoliners CEO Ingar Skiaker said on Sunday that the 25 crew members were evacuated, including two crew members who were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
“At this stage, it is too early to speculate on the cause of the list but we are starting an immediate investigation,” Skiaker said.
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Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
The Höegh Osaka, owned by Norwegian company Höegh Autoliners, was heading to Germany Saturday with roughly 1,200 Jaguars and Land Rovers on board, according to Jaguar Land Rover, and also Mini Coopers, according to British media.
Höegh Autoliners CEO Ingar Skiaker said on Sunday that the 25 crew members were evacuated, including two crew members who were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
“At this stage, it is too early to speculate on the cause of the list but we are starting an immediate investigation,” Skiaker said.
Follow @ABCNewsRadio
Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Radio chain "Alpha Media" says it will launch news drones.
Alpha Media, which owns KXL-FM and other local stations, says it will start using drones to shooting video for traffic reports.
The company, which owns about 70 radio stations nationwide, says it's reached an agreement with a manufacturer to provide the craft, according to a Reuters story by Courtney Sherwood. KOIN-TV also picked up the story, noting Alpha's agreement is with Aerial Technology out of Clackamas.
It's not clear when Alpha will start taking to the air: The Federal Aviation Administration currently bans most commercial drone flights but may loosen the rules after Congress told the agency to start finding a way to allow the flights.
Several broadcasting companies are challenging the FAA assertion it can regulate drones operated by media; the companies argue the FAA is violating the news media's press freedoms.
The company, which owns about 70 radio stations nationwide, says it's reached an agreement with a manufacturer to provide the craft, according to a Reuters story by Courtney Sherwood. KOIN-TV also picked up the story, noting Alpha's agreement is with Aerial Technology out of Clackamas.
It's not clear when Alpha will start taking to the air: The Federal Aviation Administration currently bans most commercial drone flights but may loosen the rules after Congress told the agency to start finding a way to allow the flights.
Several broadcasting companies are challenging the FAA assertion it can regulate drones operated by media; the companies argue the FAA is violating the news media's press freedoms.
Changes to aviation laws will give media more freedom to use drones.
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RPA Training from ABC News Back Story on Vimeo. |
Proposed changes to Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) rules will soon make it easier for media organisations to use small remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), better known as drones, for news gathering.
But the ABC will tightly control their use to ensure they are operated in a safe way and that privacy is respected. During his 15 years on the road for the ABC's Foreign Correspondent program, award winning journalist Mark Corcoran reported from many of the world's hot spots, covering wars, civil unrest, and disasters. In 2006, when filming in a bomb-ravaged Beirut street during a lull in air strikes, an Israeli military targeting drone with a camera attached flew overhead. |
This got Corcoran thinking about the potential of drones as a newsgathering tool, particularly for news teams working on high-risk assignments in dangerous places.
Fast forward to 2014 and a video produced by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) of its Ebola Management Centre in Liberia, in which the camera swoops over and around workers in biohazard suits and tents housing patients, is a powerful example of how small drones could be used to film vision and get pictures when journalists or camera crews cannot risk getting too close to the action.
Corcoran has done extensive research into "drone journalism" and now heads an ABC project to develop and regulate the corporation's use of drones."This technology is a wonderful tool for seeing what's around the corner or over the hill when there may be a threat to your safety," Corcoran said.
"When covering a natural disaster, quite often your line of sight is limited by debris and this gives you the opportunity to look beyond that - is the bridge around the hill still intact? Do you have an exit route?"
In 2006, RPAs were too big, too expensive, and too complicated to fly to be seriously considered by news organisations.
But now good quality video can be captured with small, simple, but highly capable machines, purchased from a hobby or camera shop for several hundred dollars.
Corcoran has done extensive research into "drone journalism" and now heads an ABC project to develop and regulate the corporation's use of drones."This technology is a wonderful tool for seeing what's around the corner or over the hill when there may be a threat to your safety," Corcoran said.
"When covering a natural disaster, quite often your line of sight is limited by debris and this gives you the opportunity to look beyond that - is the bridge around the hill still intact? Do you have an exit route?"
In 2006, RPAs were too big, too expensive, and too complicated to fly to be seriously considered by news organisations.
But now good quality video can be captured with small, simple, but highly capable machines, purchased from a hobby or camera shop for several hundred dollars.
ABC Develops Drone Training Course for Camera Operators
Melbourne based camera operator Patrick Stone learning to fly RPA, or "drone". (ABC News: Natasha Johnson)
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ABC develops drone training course for camera operators While all RPAs are subject to CASA rules, a proposed change in licensing for small "low risk" craft weighing less than two kilograms will make it easier for media organisations to use them for newsgathering and film-making in some areas.
But the national broadcaster is determined that they be operated responsibly and has developed an innovative training course for camera operators working on its news and current affairs programs who work domestically and are also often deployed overseas. "I think this is the first time, certainly in Australia, that this kind of internal training has been conducted for RPAs that weigh less than two kilograms and the ABC has a responsibility here as the nation's largest broadcaster," Corcoran said. |
"This is a terrific technology that has a lot of applications for newsgathering, current affairs film-making, for documentaries - as long as it is conducted in a safe way and that privacy is respected."
The three-day course covers air safety rules, editorial policies on respecting privacy, and hands on lessons on how to fly and film with small modified Phantom2 RPAs with attached GoPro cameras bought by the ABC.
The field training is provided by experienced instructors from Coptercam, a CASA-licensed commercial operator which has done previous RPA filming within Australia for Four Corners, Australian Story and live outside broadcasts.
"It's about ensuring that no-one gets hurt and not colliding with other aircraft. A lot of people look at this as a flying smart phone - they don't look at it as an aviation activity but it is," Corcoran said.
The three-day course covers air safety rules, editorial policies on respecting privacy, and hands on lessons on how to fly and film with small modified Phantom2 RPAs with attached GoPro cameras bought by the ABC.
The field training is provided by experienced instructors from Coptercam, a CASA-licensed commercial operator which has done previous RPA filming within Australia for Four Corners, Australian Story and live outside broadcasts.
"It's about ensuring that no-one gets hurt and not colliding with other aircraft. A lot of people look at this as a flying smart phone - they don't look at it as an aviation activity but it is," Corcoran said.
Privacy concerns and ABC's ethical guidelines
The initial development of RPAs as a surveillance technology has sparked concerns about intrusions on privacy, but Corcoran stresses that they are governed by the same ABC editorial policies that apply to all current filming operations.
We already have the ability to theoretically impinge on people's privacy with helicopters that can record good imagery more than a kilometre away from the subject, or with the powerful lenses we use on standard news cameras, and we don't do that because of the editorial controls and I see that applying to the use of RPAs. Mark Corcoran.
"We already have the ability to theoretically impinge on people's privacy with helicopters that can record good imagery more than a kilometre away from the subject, or with the powerful lenses we use on standard news cameras," he said.
"We don't do that because of the editorial controls and I see that applying to the use of RPAs."
Small RPAs can be used effectively to show the scale of a news event, such as floods or a country landscape, and have previously featured in international assignments by Four Corners, and in a series of reports by the ABC's London bureau leading up to this year's Anzac Day commemorations at Gallipoli.
But there are also assignments where drones should not be used.
The ABC will ban staff and external RPA contractors from launching small drones over bushfires as the high winds generated, low visibility created by smoke, and low-flying water bombing aircraft present unacceptable risks.
"We don't do that because of the editorial controls and I see that applying to the use of RPAs."
Small RPAs can be used effectively to show the scale of a news event, such as floods or a country landscape, and have previously featured in international assignments by Four Corners, and in a series of reports by the ABC's London bureau leading up to this year's Anzac Day commemorations at Gallipoli.
But there are also assignments where drones should not be used.
The ABC will ban staff and external RPA contractors from launching small drones over bushfires as the high winds generated, low visibility created by smoke, and low-flying water bombing aircraft present unacceptable risks.
Exciting potential and limitations
After completing the training course, senior camera operator Ron Ekkel, a veteran of many international news and current affairs assignments, could see plenty of potential for filming.
"It's a fantastic reveal tool if you want to reveal a big space, a reporter's piece to camera, and you want to show the location they are at," Mr Ekkel said.
"You can go from ground level up really high, or get great tracking shots, walking with people, or through trees."
"It's a fantastic reveal tool if you want to reveal a big space, a reporter's piece to camera, and you want to show the location they are at," Mr Ekkel said.
"You can go from ground level up really high, or get great tracking shots, walking with people, or through trees."
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But there are limitations.
CASA's rules prevent sub-two-kilogram RPAs from being flown within 5.5 kilometres of an airport or aerodrome; at night; within 30 metres of people; or directly over the top of populous areas such as crowded parks and beaches. Operators must keep them below 121 metres and always within line of sight. Corcoran said those restrictions and proposed new rules banning filming near helipads mean most metropolitan areas will be off limits. "I think initially for the ABC, the potential will be immediately realised within rural and regional areas, where we don't have the population density and don't have the air traffic," he said.
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Small Phantom 2 RPA in flight during an ABC training session. (ABC News: Natasha Johnson)
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ABC will continue to hire external CASA approved operators with their bigger, more sophisticated multi-rotors for more complex filming assignments, particularly in cities.
"I advocate a fairly conservative approach when starting out," Corcoran said.
"This training is the first step. It's about understanding what you can do and the limitations, after that it's all about practice time on the controls.
"It's relatively easy to learn how to fly, but to do it properly for our purposes is difficult to master."
"I advocate a fairly conservative approach when starting out," Corcoran said.
"This training is the first step. It's about understanding what you can do and the limitations, after that it's all about practice time on the controls.
"It's relatively easy to learn how to fly, but to do it properly for our purposes is difficult to master."
Drones are taking pictures that could demystify a malaria surge.
Researchers download images after a drone flight in Sabah, Malaysia.
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Aerial drones are targeting a new enemy: malaria.
Four hundred feet above a Malaysian forest, a three-foot eBee drone hovers and takes pictures with a 16-megapixel camera every 10 to 20 seconds. But it's not gathering images of the mosquitoes that transmit malaria. Even today's best drones aren't capable of such a photographic marvel. Rather, the drone is looking at a changing landscape that holds clues to the disease's spread. The malaria drone mission, described in a study published Oct. 22 in Trends in Parasitology, began in December 2013, when UK scientists decided to track a rare strain of the mosquito-borne disease that has surged near Southeast Asian cities. Understanding deforestation may be the key in seeing how this kind of malaria, known as Plasmodium knowlesi, is transmitted. |
The map above combines drone images with yellow dots that track the movement of macaques as determined by a GPS collar. The red dot indicates a human case of malaria, which can spread from macaques via mosquitoes.
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Aerial drones are targeting a new enemy: malaria.
Four hundred feet above a Malaysian forest, a three-foot eBee drone hovers and takes pictures with a 16-megapixel camera every 10 to 20 seconds. But it's not gathering images of the mosquitoes that transmit malaria. Even today's best drones aren't capable of such a photographic marvel. Rather, the drone is looking at a changing landscape that holds clues to the disease's spread. The malaria drone mission, described in a study published Oct. 22 in Trends in Parasitology, began in December 2013, when UK scientists decided to track a rare strain of the mosquito-borne disease that has surged near Southeast Asian cities. Understanding deforestation may be the key in seeing how this kind of malaria, known as Plasmodium knowlesi, is transmitted. The mosquitoes that carry P. knowlesi are forest dwellers. The insects breed in cool pools of water under the forest canopy and sap blood from macaque monkeys that harbor the malaria parasite. |
In Sabah, Malaysia, human cases of this kind of malaria didn't surface until about 10 years ago, says infectious disease specialist Kimberly Fornace of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is leading the drone study.
While cases of the most common malaria strains have steadily dropped during this time, P. knowlesi has thrived. It's now the number-one cause of malaria in the region. Fornace and her team suspect that human intrusion into forested areas has created more opportunities for the disease to pass between primates and humans via mosquitoes. The drone imagery they've collected so far suggests there were occasions where land development forced macaques within closer proximity of humans, who then developed malaria.
As part of a project called MONKEYBAR, the team tracks outbreaks by comparing the drone's land surveillance with hospital records of malaria cases. Meanwhile, a local wildlife commission has fitted macaques with GPS collars, which let scientists monitor the locations of monkey troops. Together, this information paints a public health map that explains how land development has influenced monkey movements — and transmission of malaria to humans. In partnership with Conservation Drones, an organization that builds drones for under $1,000, Fornace and her team plan to build a drone that snaps thermal images of macaques, so the monkeys can someday be identified without GPS collars.
Drones provide a better surveillance picture than satellite images, which are the current standard for mapping environmental changes. But Google Earth images, for example, are only updated every few weeks or months, says parasitologist Chris Drakeley of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who coauthored the Trends in Parasitology study with Fornace. Drones, he says, can provide a more comprehensive, continuous picture: "We avoid cloud cover and can see what the land use was like today, next week and the week after."
The public health implications of drone use extend far beyond malaria, says Harvard epidemiologist Nathan Eagle. Doctors have already used unmanned aircraft to carry medical supplies between rural clinics in South Africa and Haiti. Humanitarian drones also tracked property damage and hunted for survivors after Typhoon Haiyan. And when a disease like Ebola surfaces, a drone could scan for changes in bats' habitats, given that the winged mammals are proposed carriers of the hemorrhagic fever. The prices of these drones are dropping while their specs — flight performance and cameras — are improving, says Eagle. All of which means in a few years, a series of very inexpensive aerial vehicles will exist for wider use in public health research.
*Article by Nsikan Akpan NPR.org
As part of a project called MONKEYBAR, the team tracks outbreaks by comparing the drone's land surveillance with hospital records of malaria cases. Meanwhile, a local wildlife commission has fitted macaques with GPS collars, which let scientists monitor the locations of monkey troops. Together, this information paints a public health map that explains how land development has influenced monkey movements — and transmission of malaria to humans. In partnership with Conservation Drones, an organization that builds drones for under $1,000, Fornace and her team plan to build a drone that snaps thermal images of macaques, so the monkeys can someday be identified without GPS collars.
Drones provide a better surveillance picture than satellite images, which are the current standard for mapping environmental changes. But Google Earth images, for example, are only updated every few weeks or months, says parasitologist Chris Drakeley of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who coauthored the Trends in Parasitology study with Fornace. Drones, he says, can provide a more comprehensive, continuous picture: "We avoid cloud cover and can see what the land use was like today, next week and the week after."
The public health implications of drone use extend far beyond malaria, says Harvard epidemiologist Nathan Eagle. Doctors have already used unmanned aircraft to carry medical supplies between rural clinics in South Africa and Haiti. Humanitarian drones also tracked property damage and hunted for survivors after Typhoon Haiyan. And when a disease like Ebola surfaces, a drone could scan for changes in bats' habitats, given that the winged mammals are proposed carriers of the hemorrhagic fever. The prices of these drones are dropping while their specs — flight performance and cameras — are improving, says Eagle. All of which means in a few years, a series of very inexpensive aerial vehicles will exist for wider use in public health research.
*Article by Nsikan Akpan NPR.org
Game of Drones: production companies in the U.S. cleared to film with drones.
Some films, including Harry Potter, have used drone sequences from filming done in countries with looser regulations. Photograph: Jaap Buitendijk/AP
The Obama administration announced what it billed as a “significant milestone” towards the commercial exploitation of drones in US airspace on Thursday in which six movie and TV production companies will be allowed to film with unmanned aircraft in defined closed areas.
Hollywood studios and TV producers have long been pleading for the right to use drones, which are seen as opening up vast new vistas for dramatic filming at relatively cheap cost. But they have until now been thwarted by tight restrictions from the Federal Aviation Administration against any commercial use of the unmanned aircraft.
Anthony Foxx, the transportation secretary, said the move to allow the six companies to begin regular filming by drone was “a significant milestone in broadening commercial UAS [unmanned aerial systems] use while ensuring we maintain our world-class safety record in all forms of flight. These companies are blazing a trail that others are already following.”
The FAA’s restrictions has so far prevented film-makers from utilising the technology within the US, forcing many productions to go abroad. Films such as Harry Potter, Transformers and The Smurfs all include drone-captured sequences but they were all shot in other countries with looser regulations.
“This will bring a lot of business back home to the United States,” said Chris Dodd, the former US senator who is now CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America which helped secure the exemptions. “It will create a climate where more production is done at home and allow us to develop cutting-edge technology to make pictures even more imaginative than in the past.”
Under the new authorisation, the production companies will not have to meet the usual plethora of flight rules and regulations to which passenger aircraft are subject in the national airspace system. However, they will be subject to stringent safety guidelines.
These include: flying at no higher than 400 feet; restricting the flight zone to “sterile areas” of closed studios that are not open to the public; operating the drones only through pilots who have obtained private pilot certificates; keeping the drones always within an operator’s line of sight; reporting any accidents to the FAA; and foregoing any flying at night.
The desire of photographers to capture images from the air is driving an explosion in take-up of drones, both by major companies and private individuals. The FAA is struggling to contain the level of public interest, that has seen drones flying through fireworks displays, above weddings and over NFL games.
The six companies are: Astraeus Aerial, Aerial MOB, LLC, HeliVideo Productions, LLC, Pictorvision Inc, RC Pro Productions Consulting, LLC dba Vortex Aerial, and Snaproll Media, LLC. A seventh, Flying-Cam, Inc, has also applied for an exemption but has not yet satisfied the FAA.
Hollywood studios and TV producers have long been pleading for the right to use drones, which are seen as opening up vast new vistas for dramatic filming at relatively cheap cost. But they have until now been thwarted by tight restrictions from the Federal Aviation Administration against any commercial use of the unmanned aircraft.
Anthony Foxx, the transportation secretary, said the move to allow the six companies to begin regular filming by drone was “a significant milestone in broadening commercial UAS [unmanned aerial systems] use while ensuring we maintain our world-class safety record in all forms of flight. These companies are blazing a trail that others are already following.”
The FAA’s restrictions has so far prevented film-makers from utilising the technology within the US, forcing many productions to go abroad. Films such as Harry Potter, Transformers and The Smurfs all include drone-captured sequences but they were all shot in other countries with looser regulations.
“This will bring a lot of business back home to the United States,” said Chris Dodd, the former US senator who is now CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America which helped secure the exemptions. “It will create a climate where more production is done at home and allow us to develop cutting-edge technology to make pictures even more imaginative than in the past.”
Under the new authorisation, the production companies will not have to meet the usual plethora of flight rules and regulations to which passenger aircraft are subject in the national airspace system. However, they will be subject to stringent safety guidelines.
These include: flying at no higher than 400 feet; restricting the flight zone to “sterile areas” of closed studios that are not open to the public; operating the drones only through pilots who have obtained private pilot certificates; keeping the drones always within an operator’s line of sight; reporting any accidents to the FAA; and foregoing any flying at night.
The desire of photographers to capture images from the air is driving an explosion in take-up of drones, both by major companies and private individuals. The FAA is struggling to contain the level of public interest, that has seen drones flying through fireworks displays, above weddings and over NFL games.
The six companies are: Astraeus Aerial, Aerial MOB, LLC, HeliVideo Productions, LLC, Pictorvision Inc, RC Pro Productions Consulting, LLC dba Vortex Aerial, and Snaproll Media, LLC. A seventh, Flying-Cam, Inc, has also applied for an exemption but has not yet satisfied the FAA.
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Ed Pilkington is the chief reporter for Guardian US. He is a former national and foreign editor of the paper, and author of Beyond the Mother Country
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FAA approves drone use to search for missing Girl!
Twenty-three-year-old Christina Morris disappeared from a shopping center parking lot in the early morning hours of Saturday, Aug. 30. 2014
Volunteers have been searching for her ever since.
It's the kind of missing persons case where drones are useful, and now, some 13 days after the search began, they finally can use a single unmanned aircraft, CBS News correspondent Anna Werner reports.
The drone took off on its first flight over Plano, Texas Thursday morning. The volunteer search group EquuSearch will be allowed to use it to look for Morris until sunset Monday night, thanks to an emergency authorization from the FAA.
2014 CBS Interactive Inc.
Volunteers have been searching for her ever since.
It's the kind of missing persons case where drones are useful, and now, some 13 days after the search began, they finally can use a single unmanned aircraft, CBS News correspondent Anna Werner reports.
The drone took off on its first flight over Plano, Texas Thursday morning. The volunteer search group EquuSearch will be allowed to use it to look for Morris until sunset Monday night, thanks to an emergency authorization from the FAA.
2014 CBS Interactive Inc.
Schools use drones for learning. |
CBS News - 60 Minutes Reports |
Drone use covers Media Event in Bangkok.
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Drone use in Military Surveillance
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Drone use by Local Governments
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drones are revolutionizing the world at break neck speeds - drone MEDIA REPORTS. |
Drone media is a space dedicated to professionals who specialize in using high tech UAV's (unmanned air vehicles) to capture high definition aerial photos, videos and imaging. With today's technology advancement in drones the public is able to see images and video that were reserved only to Hollywood studios and "News" helicopters. Entrepreneurs have embraced the use of drones and are creating business's that will forever change the common perception that we have all been used to. Videos and images that would once cost $1200/hour from a helicopter to produce are now just a small fraction with drone technology. Drones are now commonplace in all of today's media outlets. The footage taken from drones creates a "call to action" that was never available during the last couple of years. Whether it's Real Estate, Construction or Commercial Industry drone aerial high definition photos and video are sure to be a game changer in the simplicity of common perception. Thanks to current research and development, not only will we will learn from drones we will depend on drones.