DJI is rolling out a new firmware update that makes its latest smart controller, RC Pro, backward compatible with Air 2S drones.
So, it was only natural that RC Pro would receive interest from even those DJI users who weren’t planning to upgrade to the Mavic 3. However, there was no other drone that the controller was compatible with at launch.
This article was originally published by Christopher Carey on Cities Today, the leading news platform on urban mobility and innovation, reaching an international audience of city leaders. For the latest updates, follow Cities Today on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, or sign up for Cities Today News.
UK start-up Urban-Air Port (UAP) has announced plans to establish 200 hubs for flying taxis and cargo drones across 65 cities globally over the next five years.
The firm is set to launch its first ‘vertiport’, dubbed the “worlds smallest airport”, in Coventry in April, and says a “significant investment” from Hyundai Motor Group’s urban air division Supernal will enable expansion to further sites.
Most quantum computers are based on superconductors or trapped ions, but an alternative approach using ordinary atoms may have advantages.
Back in 2016, we told you about the iBubble, an underwater drone that autonomously follows and films scuba divers. Well, it now has a more capable industrial-use big brother, known as the Seasam.
Back in 2016, we told you about the iBubble, an underwater drone that autonomously follows and films scuba divers. Well, it now has a more capable industrial-use big brother, known as the Seasam.
Manufactured by French marine tech company Notilo Plus, the Seasam actually first hit the market in 2019. That said, it recently gained attention when it was featured in the horror film The Deep House, in which a scuba diving couple explore an underwater haunted house … and yes, that is kind of a cool premise for a movie.
Continue reading “Seasam drone autonomously follows divers and performs underwater tasks” »
Mock seemed pleased with the outcome. “You could look at this and say, ‘O.K., the A.I. got five, our human got zero,’” he told viewers. “From the fighter-pilot world, we trust what works, and what we saw was that in this limited area, this specific scenario, we’ve got A.I. that works.” (A YouTube video of the trials has since garnered half a million views.)
Brett Darcey, who runs Heron, told me that the company has used Falco to fly drones, completing seventy-four flights with zero crashes. But it’s still unclear how the technology will react to the infinite possibilities of real-world conditions. The human mind processes more slowly than a computer, but it has the cognitive flexibility to adapt to unimagined circumstances; artificial intelligence, so far, does not. Anna Skinner, a human-factors psychologist, and another science adviser to the ACE program, told me, “Humans are able to draw on their experience and take reasonable actions in the face of uncertainty. And, especially in a combat situation, uncertainty is always going to be present.”
What if plants could tell us when pests are attacking them, or they’re too dry, or they need more fertilizer. One startup is gene engineering farm plants so they can communicate in in fluorescent colors. The result: a farmer’s phone, drone, or even satellite imagery can reveal what is happening in hundreds of acres of fields …
That leads to better food, fewer crop failures, and more revenue for farmers.
Continue reading “Engineering plants to talk via bioluminescence” »
Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a drone whose hinged arms can fold themselves from horizontal to vertical position in order to pass through tight spaces or carry light objects.
Previous limb-adjusting vehicles created by labs like Purdue University’s Engineering Technology school were outfitted with actuators that shifted the arms and rotors into different positions, making them more efficient in certain conditions like heavy winds. The HiPeRLab staff wanted to avoid inclusion of actuators, which draw off the drone’s batteries and thereby reduce its flight time. Their solution: use passive hinges whose up and down folding is powered by the rotors themselves.
And it can balance perfectly on power lines.
Scientists at UC Berkeley developed an experimental drone called the Midair Reconfigurable Quadcopter. As the name implies, the drone can shape-shift in midair, a report from NewAtlas reveals.
Continue reading “Scientists Have Created a Novel Drone That Shapeshifts Mid-Flight” »
Kawasaki has shoehorned the supercharged 1,000cc engine from its wild H2R hyperbike into a heavy-lift autonomous cargo helicopter, and has now demonstrated a robotic system for loading and unloading it without exposing humans to those big blades.
The K-Racer X1 is a beast of a drone, roughly the size of a small car. It rises vertically on a helicopter-style top rotor, but where there’s normally a tail rotor to balance out torque, this machine uses two forward-facing props mounted at the end of stubby wings. These props double as forward propulsion, with the wings providing some lift.
Continue reading “Kawasaki’s supercharged cargo copter tests robotic ground crew” »
