Weekend Roundup: October 2, 2020

October 2, 2020 | AUVSI News

This Week in the Unmanned Systems and Robotics World

Einride has raised an additional $10 million in venture capital funding. The company believes the funding will be enough to get it to next year, when it can hopefully seek out a bigger round. (VentureBeat)

Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home to the National Football League’s Atlanta Falcons, has become the first professional sports stadium to use drone-based technology to help sanitize the facility. The stadium has partnered with a company called Lucid Drone Technologies, which offers D1 disinfecting drones to sanitize key areas of the facility in an effective and efficient manner. (11Alive)

Tennant Company, which designs, manufactures and markets platforms to reinvent how the world cleans, has launched its newest autonomous floor cleaning machine, the T380AMR Robotic Floor Scrubber. The company says that the robotic floor scrubber is ideal for customers with narrow spaces or layouts that may have previously challenged other robotic machines. (Tennant Company)

Bell Textron Inc. announced this week the successful flight of the Bell Autonomous Pod Transport (APT) 70 as part of a joint flight demonstration with NASA. In 2018, Bell was selected to participate in NASA’s Systems Integration and Operationalization (SIO) activity, which includes multiple flight demonstrations focusing on different types of UAS and their flight environments. (Bell Textron)

Fort Drum, a U.S. Army military reservation and a census-designated place in Jefferson County, on the northern border of New York, has received more than $21 million to begin construction of a new UAS hangar. The funding was announced by U.S. Sens. Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten E. Gillibrand, both D-N.Y., who add that the hangar will modernize Fort Drum’s base infrastructure, expand capabilities available on base and boost the north country economy. (NNY360)

ANRA Technologies has announced its participation in a project together with Trax International, uAvionix and Plane Finder to demonstrate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) UAS operations in non-segregated airspace in the United Kingdom. The consortium has been awarded UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding for its proposed technical solution, which is considered an essential enabler for a multitude of UAS projects that would allow more effective recovery from existing and/or future COVID impacts. (ANRA Technologies)

Freefly Systems and Auterion have announced the new Astro Enterprise Drone Solution. Described as a multi-use enterprise drone, the Astro is for utility, telco, and infrastructure companies, as well as drone service providers and first responders. (Dronelife)

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) has announced that it completed the first flight of the Protector RG Mk1 Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) on Sept 25. The first Protector RPAS, which is known within GA-ASI as UK1, will be used to support system testing as part of a combined UK Ministry of Defence, U.S. Air Force and GA-ASI test team. (GA-ASI)