Tag Archives: Nordic Unmanned

406 Coaxial Drone Patent

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:24 — 18.9MB)

Subscribe: Email | RSS

A company holds a patent for coaxial drone multirotors, locals push back on Amazon’s delivery plans, autonomous battery swapping, transforming battlefield medicine, drones in sports, saving elm trees, and investigating environmental polluters with drones.

UAV Video of the Week

Video: Why coaxial configuration of drones is a brilliant invention

Nordic Unmanned has a patent for coaxial configuration on a drone. (Where two motors operate on the same axis, rotating in opposite directions.) The company will license the concept as a product. For more, see Nordic Unmanned – Coaxial Configuration Patent.

UAV News

Amazon drones are coming to town. Some locals want to shoot them.

Amazon recently announced they would begin delivering packages by drone in the United States. Six months ago the company notified local authorities in unincorporated Lockeford, California. The drone facility is under construction, but residents are just hearing about it now and are not all supportive.

Airrow is automating battery and payload swapping for drones

Airrow is an LA-based startup developing an autonomous device that swaps drone batteries and payloads. They say, “The biggest problem with drones today is the manual labor behind each drone’s ground operation.” Airrow believes that up to 80% of the daily operational costs for drones can be eliminated by “removing human labor from the mundane job of servicing a drone’s routine operation.” They call their solution Dronehub.

How Drones Will Transform Battlefield Medicine – and Save Lives

In combat operations, one significant way to save lives is to provide blood products to forward-deployed medics and corpsmen quickly. Blood loss (or “bleeding out”) is reported to be the leading cause of preventable death on the battlefield. Drones could offer a way to deliver blood products quickly.

Drones in sports: Evolution of sports through digital eyes

Indian sports company KreedOn looks at how drones impact sports:

Aerospace company working to protect tree canopy using drone technology

Dutch elm disease has devastated elm trees in a number of countries. Volatus Aerospace wants to use drones to identify the disease earlier than is usually the case. The drones can fly through an area and use a machine-learning algorithm to identify suspect trees. The traditional ground-based assessment is slow and costly.

Enviros train drone pilots to find and pursue pollution

The non-profit Waterkeeper Alliance is a global network of clean water groups. They are training activists to use drones for storytelling and evidence collection while investigating suspected violations of the Clean Air Act.

343 Optionally Piloted

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:23 — 24.4MB)

Subscribe: Email | RSS

Optionally piloted firefighting helicopters, was it a jetpack or a manikin on a drone, the Amazon Prime Air exemption with conditions, Japan Airlines interest in drones, UAS RF spectrum news, and using a drone to deliver a spare part to a drilling platform.

UAV News

Taking the Fight to the Night

Fighting wildfires is dangerous at night and typically aerial firefighting is suspended. However, optionally piloted aircraft could be a solution. Kaman Corp. is converting its conventionally piloted K-MAX heavy-lift helicopter to be optionally piloted. Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky Aviation company is developing the Matrix aerial firefighting helicopter solution that is intended to make just about any helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft optionally piloted.

Mystery jetpack man flying by commercial pilots at LAX may have been a manikin on a drone

Pilots on two airplanes on final approach into Los Angeles International Airport reported seeing someone with a jetpack at 3,000 feet. Was it a jetpack, or was it a manikin strapped to a large electric drone?

Amazon Prime Air drones secure FAA exemption

The FAA has approved exemption 18602 for the Amazon Prime Air MK27 unmanned aircraft to operate in cargo delivery operations without an airworthiness certificate. The approval allows Amazon to continue operations and development without certification, but with a number of limitations.

Amazon drones can’t make city deliveries. The company must first solve lawn mowers falling from the sky

The MK27 drones weigh 88 pounds, about the weight of a standard lawn mower. Some people have safety concerns since the Amazon flight manuals the company shares with the FAA are proprietary. We don’t know how Amazon is planning to mitigate risks.

Japan Airlines backed by Tokyo government to study drones

Japan Airlines (JAL) and four other companies will undertake a study to explore the logistics of a drone delivery service by 2022. The drones would deliver pharmaceuticals to hospitals, food to offices and apartments, and provide drone security patrols. Drone project testing is planned for Tokyo Bay and stations around the Metropolitan area. Besides JAL, the other companies are KDDI (the telecommunications operator), East Japan Railways, Weathernews, and Terra Drone Corporation.

FCC Study supports using 5 GHZ band for Drone Operations

In the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, Congress asked the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau to submit a report on spectrum allocation for unmanned aircraft. The FCC has submitted that report, which recommends proceeding with rulemaking to enable the use of the 5030-5091 MHz band.

Equinor Performs world’s first offshore logistics operation via Drone

Nordic Unmanned flew a drone carrying a 3D-printed part to the Troll A platform in the North Sea. The part was for the lifeboat system on the platform is operated by Equinor ASA, a Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company. The 80 kilometre flight took about one hour at an altitude of about 5000 feet. The drone was a Camcopter S-100 model, manufactured by Schiebel.

UAV Video of the Week

Mentioned

Commercial UAV Expo Americas, virtual event, September 15-17, 2020.

Commercial UAV Expo Europe, virtual event, December 1-3, 2020.