Monthly Archives: July 2020

339 Planning for Drones at Airports

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Airfield design guidelines for large UAS, a guidebook for UAS threats at airports, first free flight of Airbus naval UAS, studying sea turtles and saving baby deer, fully charging drone batteries in 5 minutes, and drones fly over a nuclear power plant.

UAV News

Woolpert hired to research and develop airfield design guidelines for large UAS

The guidelines are primarily intended for airport managers, planners, engineers, UAS operators, and other stakeholders. If manned and unmanned aircraft are going to operate in the same airspace, airports will want to know the impacts. That includes the facility needs of large UAS and if they would use the same infrastructure. The contract with Woolpert is under the Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP), which is managed by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and sponsored by the FAA.

Woolpert Selected by National Safe Skies Alliance to Develop UAS Response Guidebook for Airports

The guidebook is intended to help airports plan for and respond to UAS threats. The National Safe Skies Alliance is a non-profit organization funded by the FAA. It works with airports, government, and industry to maintain a safe and effective aviation security system. Woolpert will develop strategies and consider detection systems. Guidebook production is already underway with completion planned for 2021.

Airbus UAV Helo Completes First Free Flight

The relatively compact and stealthy Airbus Helicopters VSR700 is a multi-mission naval UAS designed to operate alongside other shipborne naval assets. It seeks to provide commanders with a tactical picture. The VSR700 flew for 10 minutes within visual line of sight. It had previously flown tethered. Powered by a Continental CD-155 four-cylinder, FADEC-controlled turbodiesel running on Jet A, VSR sea trials are planned for late 2021.

Embry-Riddle and Northrop Grumman Survey Sea Turtles

The Turtle Tech project teams Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Northrop Grumman with the Brevard Zoo in Florida. It’s a drone-based surveillance effort to better understand the behavior of sea turtles. The computer visioning systems can identify individual sea turtles, as well as their species, gender, and unique markings. Funded with a Northrop Grumman Foundation grant, Embry-Riddle researchers plan to use the Applied Aeronautics fixed-wing Albatross VTOL and the DJI Matrice 210.

Thermal drone used to save 15 baby Deer in Norway

A wildlife and outfield manager in Norway has been saving injured baby deer using a thermal camera equipped drone. Flights are conducted every morning between 2 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. looking for injured baby deer in grasslands. The DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual is equipped with both a thermal camera and visual camera.

Storedot demonstrates worlds first 5 minute charge of a commercial drone

StoreDot is a battery developer that specializes in ultra-fast charging (UFC) technology. The company is applying UFC technology to the drone industry and they have demonstrated fully-charging a commercial drone in five minutes. StoreDot says their Li-ion batteries are “based on novel nanostructured materials combined with proprietary organic binders and enhanced electrolytes.”

The Night A Mysterious Drone Swarm Descended On Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant

On two successive evenings in September 2019, a swarm of drones flew over the Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Station in Arizona, America’s most powerful nuclear plant. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) called it a “drone-a-palooza.” Documents obtained from the NRC through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that four to six drones were involved. They were estimated to be over 2 feet in diameter with flashing lights.

338 Drones and Biomimicry

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Avian biomimicry, stadium sanitizing with a drone, a Galileo competition, a new HALE flies, drones and electromagnetic pulses, wildfire data from drones, new standards from EASA, an F-15 with a loyal wingman under its wing.

UAV News

Biomimicry from The Drone Bird Co.
The Aves from The Drone Bird Co.

A Bird James Bond Might Love

Netherlands-based The Drone Bird Co. knows something about biomimicry. The company has used flapping drones masquerading peregrine falcons to disburse populations of pest birds. Now the company has a non-flapping series called Aves (“aves” being Latin for “birds.”) CEO Jan-Willem van den Eijkel: “The AVES series is basically a very big fixed-wing bird whether it’s a gull, a hawk or an eagle. You can make any shape, but the gull was the most ambitious because of the wing shape. If you look at the gull, you’ll see there is no tail or stabilizer, so to make it look like the gull and fly stably, we had to test and develop a lot.”

Pennsylvania company using disinfecting drones to help fans return to stadiums in fall

Aeras Fog Company says their drone can sanitize an entire stadium in three hours. The 50-pound MG1S drone can spray disinfectant up to 20 acres-an-hour. People can occupy the sanitized space within three minutes. The drone is similar to those used for fertilizing crop fields.

MyGalileoDrone competition seeks UAV innovations

The European GNSS Agency (GSA) has launched the MyGalileoDrone competition. “The aim of the contest is to design, develop, test, and prepare for commercial launch a drone-based application and/or service able to provide a position and/or time fix by using a Galileo-enabled receiver.” Galileo can be used on the drone, smartphone app, payload, or in any other device supporting the Galileo drone application. Initial ideas should be submitted by Aug. 31, 2020.

American Made Swift High-Altitude-Long-Endurance UAS Completes Landmark First Flight

Swift Engineering‘s high altitude long endurance (HALE) UAS completed its maiden flight at New Mexico’s Spaceport America. The Swift HALE UAS is designed to operate unmanned at 70,000 feet and offers 24-hour persistent and stable upper atmosphere operations for commercial and military surveillance, monitoring, communications, and security applications. The 72-foot solar-powered air vehicle weighs less than 180 pounds and can safely carry up to 15-pound payloads for missions.

Northrop Grumman to use Epirus’ C-UAS EMP weapon system

Northrop Grumman will use the Leonidas electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon system from Epirus. Leonidas uses solid-state commercial semiconductor technology for C-UAS defense and when fired, it creates an EMP that can be directed for precision targeting. It can “sanitise a volume of terrain or sky, creating a force field effect.” This will become part of the Northrop Grumman Counter-Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) systems-of-systems solution offering.

Plymouth Rock Technologies Forms Strategic Alliance With Hummingbird Drones to Fight Wildfire Threats

Plymouth Rock Technologies Inc. (PRT) develops threat detection technologies while Hummingbird Drones deals with wildfire analysis from drones. The companies are working together to mount sensors on drones and provide software that allows live actionable data for wildfire analysis.

EASA publishes proposed standards for certification of light drones

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has proposed Special Condition Light UAS standards in a 31-page draft document. The standards are applicable to unmanned aircraft under 600 Kg with no occupants. EASA is defining risk-based certification requirements. The proposal is open for public comments until September 30, 2020.

F-15 Eagle Seen Loaded With Loyal Wingman Drone For Previously Unknown Tests

An F-15C was photographed in a hangar with a loyal wingman drone attached to its left underwing pylon. The modified UTAP-22 Mako is from Kratos Defense and Security Solutions. The UTAP-22 reportedly has a price of between $2 and $3 million, can carry up 350 pounds of stores or other payloads, plus an additional 500 pounds of stores externally on underwing pylons and wingtip pods.

Video of the Week

360° video – The NRC’s Aerial Robotics Laboratory

The National Research Council of Canada’s Aerial Robotics Laboratory is an indoor drone testing environment designed for the development of contact-based drone applications on elevated structures.

337 Hacking Drones

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Hacking drones as a target and as a weapon, military drone flight over San Diego, a State-by-State drone report card, a milestone in India for civilian drones, the EHang 216 goes sightseeing, and those drone sightings in the U.S. midwest, revisited.

UAV News

Drones Aren’t Just Hackers’ Targets – They’re Hackers’ Weapons

A 96-page report titled How to Analyze the Cyber Threat from Drones [PDF] has been published by the Rand Corporation. The report summarizes 26 specific instances of hacking drones. The most common cyberattacks reviewed were denial of service and spoofing attacks against an active drone. The Rand Corporation recommends:

  • DHS must continue to work with senior policymakers, cybersecurity experts, and other government and law enforcement agencies to move towards a coherent UAS cyber strategy.
  • DHS should also prioritize the most critical vulnerabilities and find ways to close attack vectors and protect attack surfaces.
  • DHS will need to monitor UAS adoption and anticipate the implications of widespread UAS diffusion.

Secret General Atomics Drone Flights Over San Diego Raise Surveillance Concerns

The press reported that a new version of the Predator drone (the SkyGuardian) would be flying over San Diego. The General Atomics SkyGuardian has an advanced detect-and-avoid system with a Due Regard Radar to detect other aircraft, TCAS (Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System) for detecting nearby aircraft transponders, and ADSB (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) which broadcasts the drone’s location.

Which States Are Prepared for the Drone Industry?

The authors argue that states should take the lead by creating drone highways that mirror the paths of the public roads beneath them. The “Fifty-State Report Card” ranks states on their readiness to get new drone technology into the skies. The ranking considers airspace lease law, law vesting air rights with landowners, and navigation easement law, as well as having an aviation advisory committee and the estimate for drone jobs. North Dakota ranks #1 and #50 falls to South Carolina. This is from the Mercatus Center, associated with George Mason University.

India’s First NPNT Compliant Drone Flight Successfully Completed

India’s first No-Permission No-Takeoff (NPNT) compliant drone flight was successfully completed. India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation banned civilian use of UAVs in 2014, but in 2018, a new policy became effective. UAVs had to comply with stringent manufacturing standards and also be compliant with the new No-Permission No-Takeoff (NPNT) architecture requiring a Unique Identification Number (UIN), an Unmanned Aircraft Operator Permit (UAOP), online permission for every flight, and compliance workflow through a fully digital “Digital Sky” portal. This Digital Sky platform was demonstrated with an A200 Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS)

EHang 216 Sightseeing Flights

EHang released a video showing an EHang 216 autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV) conducting aerial sightseeing trial flights in Yantai, a coastal city in East China. Passengers flew around Yantai’s Fisherman’s Wharf in trials that are part of a “world flight tour.” EHang founder and CEO said, “As the world’s first provider of passenger-grade AAVs, we are honored to prove this game-changing air mobility solution by demonstrating flights to regulators, customers, partners and the general public. The positive support and feedback have strengthened our determination in our quest to bring this new style of mobility to the people.” 

Video: Self-flying EHang 216 Showcases Aerial Sightseeing Trips Over the Sea in East China

Newly Released FAA Documents Give Unprecedented Look Into Colorado Drone Swarm Mystery

In December 2019 and January 2020, law enforcement agencies reported seeing drones flying at night in formations in parts of Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas. The sightings made national news, but we never got a really good idea what (or who) was behind this. Now a volunteer researcher with the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain hundreds of pages of emails and other documents from the FAA and other federal agencies. Hundreds of other documents are still being processed by the FAA and some documents are being withheld by the FAA. The agency says they are exempt from FOIA.

Kespry Appoints Krishnan Hariharan as Vice President of Engineering

Kespry announced the appointment of Krishnan Hariharan as Vice-President of Engineering overseeing Kespry’s Aerial Intelligence platform development and evolution. Hariharan was Vice-President, Engineering and Product Management for PrecisionHawk. Before that, he held a number of leadership roles at SAVO, Sabre, and OpenText. He also founded River North Labs, a technology consulting company.

336 DroneDeploy CEO Mike Winn

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Guest

DroneDeploy CEO Mike Winn
DroneDeploy CEO Mike Winn

Mike Winn is a co-founder and the CEO of DroneDeploy. The company was founded in 2013, originally to combat poaching. DroneDeploy is now a leading cloud software platform for commercial drones. Industry sectors they serve include agriculture, construction, mining, energy, forestry, and others. DroneDeploy customers get professional-grade imagery and analysis, 3D modeling, and more. Customers have mapped and analyzed over 100 million acres in over 180 countries.

Mike explains how drones have progressed from a novelty to an integral part of many business operations. Drones are increasingly becoming the future of work as they help industrial professionals remotely work, collaborate, and improve the safety of their job sites.

DroneDeploy

We talk about outsourcing drone operations versus using internal resources, and how they have become a simple to use tool that doesn’t require a specialist. Mike talks about the ease of data capture and analysis, and how the free Flight app can be used for flight planning and data collection that uploads images to an analytical engine for translation into a 3D model and map.

DroneDeploy finds that even though they support many different industries, a surprising amount of the technology is horizontal (cross-industry) rather than industry-specific.

DroneDeploy also operates DroneDeploy.org where they give free or subsidized licenses to organizations using drones for good.

Find DroneDeploy on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.