Weekend Roundup

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This Week in the Unmanned Systems and Robotics World

Researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have developed Solar Soaring technology that gives UAS the ability to fly for more than 12 hours. Solar-Soaring, which is a “pair of endurance-enhancing technologies,” enables a UAS to fly longer without carrying extra weight in batteries, ultimately helping the warfighter. (United States Navy)

The city of Bellevue, Washington is interested in the potential benefits that autonomous vehicles could provide the city. Transportation planners envision a fleet of self-driving vans that, in the future, would convince commuters to stop driving their own cars, which routinely clog Eastside highways each workday. (The Seattle Times)

Next month, Uplift Data Partners, in collaboration with Aerovista Drone Academy, will launch a Night Ops training module that will be a “first-of-its-kind online resource” that provides its network of highly-trained pilots extensive knowledge for night flight operations. Uplift Data Partners is among the first ten percent of companies approved by the FAA to fly UAS at night. (PR Newswire)

The Virginia Tech agBOT team recently won first place in the third annual 2018 agBOT Challenge. The national event is broken into two separate challenges—weed and feed and harvesting—and Virginia Tech won the watermelon harvesting challenge by creating an autonomous system that could locate, identify, sort, and harvest ripe watermelons in a field. (Virginia Tech News)

In Georgia, Gwinnett County and the city of Chamblee were among the recent winners of a “smart communities challenge” led by Georgia Tech. Each community will receive seed funding, and assistance from a Georgia Tech researcher, for their winning projects, which involve exploring connected vehicle (Gwinnett County) and autonomous vehicle (Chamblee) technologies. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

A self-driving bus recently made its debut in Russia during the 2018 World Cup. The vehicle was used in Kazan, one of the 2018 World Cup Russia host cities, to transport fans from Kazan’s World Cup “fan zone” meeting point to a stop that was walking distance from the Kazan Arena. (The Sunday Times Driving)

LORD Sensing, MicroStrain has announced the addition of two wireless sensors—the TC-Link-200-OEM and the SG-Link-200-OEM—that enable original equipment manufacturers to remotely collect data from a range of sensor types. Chris Arnold, LORD Sensing Product Manager, says that the sensors “now allow customers to quickly and easily integrate wireless data acquisition into their product without worrying about signal conditioning and radio design.” (LORD Corporation)

Inertial Sense has closed a $2 million round of seed funding. The company will use the funds to “accelerate their market-leading position and advanced development of additional micro-navigation solutions and 3-D motion sensors.” (Inertial Sense)

UAS LiDAR technologies designer, developer and producer YellowScan is opening a new office in Salt Lake City, Utah. This new office, along with the company’s corporate headquarter in Montferrier-sur-Lez near Montpellier (France), will support YellowScan’s growth strategy. (YellowScan)

General Atomics has been awarded a contract worth more than $39.5 million from the U.S. Navy to fly its own MQ-9 Reaper UAS to keep watch over a U.S. Marine task force in Afghanistan. Per the original information, via the Drive, contractors will both fly the Reapers remotely and maintain them in-country. (The Drive)

A group of four students from the Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) has designed and developed an unmanned air boat, which is a “flat-bottomed vessel pushed forward by an aircraft-type propeller and powered by either an aircraft or an automotive engine.” The unmanned air boat has a number of features and capabilities, including its ability to travel up to a distance of 15 to 20 kilometers. (Bangalore Mirror)

Last year, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers designed a tiny computer chip tailored to help honeybee-sized UAS navigate. Researchers have now shrunk their chip design even further, in both size and power consumption. (MIT News)