On June 29, the Government of Malawi and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) launched an air corridor, known as the Humanitarian UAV Testing Corridor, to test the potential use of UAS for humanitarian efforts.
The Humanitarian UAV Testing Corridor, which will be used to facilitate testing in the areas of imagery, connectivity, and transport, is the first corridor in Africa, and one of the first in the world, that has a specific focus on humanitarian and development use.
“This humanitarian drone testing corridor can significantly improve our efficiency and ability to deliver services to the world's most vulnerable children,” says Christopher Fabian, UNICEF Office of Global Innovation Principal Adviser.
Airspace
Airspace
Redkite wide-area sensor completes successful advanced flight testing aboard Integrator UAS
Logos Technologies has announced that it has successfully conducted advanced flight testing of its Redkite wide-area sensor aboard the Insitu Integrator UAS.
Testing confirmed that the Redkite was capable of capturing stabilized, wide-area motion imagery (WAMI), and could successfully stream it to multiple handheld devices on the ground from the payload bay of the UAS.
This latest demonstration, which was the second successful airborne test with the Integrator, took place in Boardman, Oregon.
Oklahoma State University students and others use UAS to gather data on weather
About 60 students and staff from Oklahoma State University (OSU), and the universities of Kentucky, Oklahoma and Nebraska, are spending the week of June 26 flying UAS at OSU’s Unmanned Aircraft Flight Station, to collect data on weather.
This is the second year that the universities have come together to test UAS and their ability to improve weather forecasting, and the students seem to enjoy the collaborative environment as they work with students from different universities on a shared challenge.
Microdrones’ md4-1000 UAV added to Transport Canada's list of Compliant Unmanned Air Systems
Transport Canada (TC) has added Microdrones’ md4-1000 UAV to its exclusive list of Compliant Unmanned Air Systems, making Microdrones one of just eight companies in the world to earn such a distinction.
In order to earn compliance, Microdrones had to submit an assortment of application materials, including flight, maintenance, and systems design manuals.
“This compliance means that our platform meets a certain level of safety and will provide users with the opportunity to become a TC-compliant organization, gaining access to all the related advantages," says Sebastien Long, Microdrones' Sales Manager for Canada.
Canada’s UAS Centre of Excellence granted permission to begin operations at its UAS test range
Canada’s UAS Centre of Excellence can now begin operations at its test range in Alma, Quebec, after receiving approval from Transport Canada.
Besides facilitating research and development, the test range will provide the UAS industry with “dedicated, restricted airspace,” where beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights can be carried out.
“Transport Canada is proud of the progress we are making to support innovation and research in Canada’s drone sector,” says Marc Garneau, Minister of Transport.
New York’s Orange County set to begin using UAS
Orange County, New York’s Emergency Services Department will begin using UAS for a variety of tasks around the county.
The UAS program will be overseen by Deputy Commissioner of Emergency Services Alan Mack.
Mack, who is a licensed UAS operator and recent retiree from the U.S. Army, is looking forward to getting this new technology into the sky.
“The drones will be a valuable tool in many emergency situations and we are eager to put this program into practice,” Mack says via the Hudson Valley News Network.
RE2 Robotics chosen to develop technology that will convert manned aircraft to robotically piloted, autonomous aircraft
The United States Air Force has selected Pittsburg-based RE2 Robotics to develop the Common Aircraft Retrofit for Novel Autonomous Control (CARNAC) robotic system, which will serve as “a drop-in robotic system to rapidly convert a variety of traditionally manned aircraft to robotically piloted, autonomous aircraft under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.”
The CARNAC robotic system, which will utilize existing aviation assets and advances in vehicle automation technologies during its development, will be used to operate the aircraft in a similar fashion to how a human pilot does, and there will not be any modifications required to the aircraft.
Kansas State University Polytechnic Campus receives approval to fly UAS at night
The FAA has granted Kansas State Polytechnic's Applied Aviation Research Center permission to fly UAS at night.
The campus's research sector will benefit from this waiver, and the waiver will also be used in commercial flight training courses, as well as in upcoming curriculum in the UAS degree option.
UC Santa Barbara researchers use UAS and WiFi for 3D through-wall imaging
Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) working out of professor Yasamin Mostofi’s lab have conducted a demonstration in which they used two UAS working in tandem, and WiFi, to capture the three-dimensional imaging of objects through walls.
In their experiment, which the results of that and the proposed methodology appeared in the Association for Computing Machinery/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN), researchers use two autonomous octocopters to fly outside of an enclosed, four-sided brick house whose interior is foreign to the UAS.
Intel partners with International Olympic Committee to bring its Drone Light Show to future Olympics
Intel has announced a long-term technology partnership with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which will, among many things, bring Intel’s drone light show technology to future Olympic games, in an effort to create “never-seen-before images in the sky.”
Through the partnership, which is expected to “transform the Olympic Games and the Olympic experience," Intel will join “The Olympic Partner” (TOP) worldwide sponsorship program, and thus, become a Worldwide TOP Partner through 2024.