Daily Drone News – Wednesday, October 6th, 2021

Here's your summary of all the drone news we learned about today in our effort to stay on top of this rapidly changing industry. We publish this post every weekday at 5:30 p.m. Some of these stories are from DroneXL.co and some of them will be from other sources. If you'd like to receive this in an email going forward, be sure to subscribe using the form below.

Daily Drone News – Wednesday, October 6th, 2021

According to the video, NATO scientists are developing a signature database of tiny UAVs to assist nations in developing their drone detection systems and counter-drone programs. It's unknown why NATO chose to share the footage on YouTube and Twitter two years after it was made.

Aquiline Drones, a drone company based in Hartford, Connecticut, has laid off almost half of its workforce. The business cites pandemic-related travel restrictions and material shortages as the primary reasons for the layoffs.

In spite of the projected $28 billion commercial unmanned aerial vehicle market by 2029, certain economic sectors are still best serviced by manned aircraft like airplanes and helicopters. The American drone maker and cloud technology company Aquiline Drones has spent the last two years building an airline business devoted to the timely delivery of human tissue, organs, and blood. The FAA granted AD Airlines its Air Carrier Certificate on September 16, 2021, allowing AD to launch its lifesaving tissue and organ delivery service. AD Airlines will utilize its patent-pending Mixed Modal Transport Model (R2M2), beginning with manned aircraft and progressively adding drones as FAA clearances come in.

The Skyward team redesigned the Skyward InFlight smartphone application.

Recent research found that Europe's southernmost glaciers would most likely be reduced to ice patches over the next twenty years as a result of climate change, which was supported by 3D models created by drones.

Let's meet LEONARDO, or LEO. LEgs ONboARD drone is an abbreviation for this robot's name. The Caltech engineers that created LEO had to build the bot for both walking and flying, and create specialized software to connect its different components.

‘Saildrone' Footage Offers Rare Peek Inside a Category 4 Hurricane
The 23-foot crewless vessel pierced the eyewall of Hurricane Sam and captured stunning images as the storm barreled through the Atlantic Ocean, reports the NYT.

The DJI FPV Combo is now available for purchase at a $100 discount on Amazon. You will now ‘just' have to pay $1,199.

Automation docking station for Autel Robotics' EVO II drones. The EVO Nest drone box allows customers to operate drones remotely. The system works with EVO II, EVO II RTK, and EVO II Enterprise.

In Australia, a drone operator accused of attacking cops while recording a COVID-19 protest claims he will fight the accusations and acted in self-defense. Hugh Cameron Dickson was charged in Brisbane Magistrates Court on Wednesday after being detained on September 18 during a demonstration. In addition to two charges of severe assault on a cop, the 55-year-old man is charged with illegal possession of prohibited narcotics.

The Port of Antwerp in Belgium has tested a fixed-wing drone with a camera to assess its potential to improve safety and security by giving comprehensive pictures of emerging problems in real-time.

Drone Light Shows

Drones are seen falling from the sky during an unsuccessful performance in Zhengzhou, China. Drone light shows have taken the place of fireworks and opened up a new industry for evening advertising in the sky, but when the drones fail, it can be a frightening experience.

Applications are now open for the Second International Drone Show Competition, created by Riga, Latvia-based SPH Engineering. The competition is open to drone show designers and engineers from all over the world and incorporates six categories

Drones and the FAA

RaceDayQuads has filed a 14,000-word, 154-page brief in a potentially ground-shaking case challenging the legality of the FAA's drone regulations, specifically Remote Identification (RID) of Unmanned Aircraft. A win for RDQ would likely blow up the rule and require the FAA to go back to square one on its process, reports Forbes. The cascading effects could include additional delays in expanded commercial drone operations, including operations over people and beyond visual line of sight. It could also impact the implementation of a low-altitude unmanned traffic management system.

With regards to the RaceDayQuads lawsuit from Tyler Brennan against the FAA concerning Remote ID for Drones, Brendan Schulman, formerly the DJI's top legal person in the US, shared the brief from DOJ on behalf of the FAA, arguing that the rule is legal and valid. This was filed last night.

“Interestingly, we now have the federal government on record in court saying there is no reasonable privacy expectation in the operation of a drone. But for years, we heard (without explanation) that potential access to drone flight data is somehow a national security threat,” Schulman said.

Drone deliveries

Wing, an Alphabet company, has started a test operation to fly goods from shopping mall roofs in its largest market, Logan, Australia. To test the new concept, Wing has joined up with Australian retail property company Vicinity Centres to fly orders to consumers from companies immediately below their launching pad.

Valqari, the creator of the patented Drone Delivery Station and provider of last-inch mailbox solutions for drone deliveries, has been awarded its latest patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Royal Mail has started a two-week trial of scheduled, autonomous flights between Kirkwall and North Ronaldsay in the Orkney Islands, using drones from Windracers to help better connect remote island communities.

A Leesburg-based commercial drone operating and training business is joining up with a renowned Loudoun County restaurant to deliver meals via drone for the first time in Northern Virginia. The big day is tomorrow morning, Wednesday, October 6. Xelevate has joined up with Roots 657 Cafe to serve meals to many local clients.

Drones for good

“As technologies evolve and become more commonplace, we evaluate what is or is not appropriate for use in our community,” Sheriff Brian Pixley from the Columbia County Sheriff's Office in Oregon said. “We believe drones are a great tool in the field, whether for enforcement, search, and rescue, or other authorized purposes.”

Hardin County Sheriff's Office gets drone. Sheriff Deputy Travis Cook said the drone, a DJI Matrice 300 RTK, has forward-looking infrared, which allows it to use thermal imaging. “It has the ability to find a heat signature, so if we're looking for a small child … we can do it at night without the aid of anything else,” he said, according to The Messenger.

Earthquake scientists like Chelsea Scott and Ramón Arrowsmith search for flaws. They need to know where a fault is, how much it has shifted, and how it behaves below the surface. Drones, or small uncrewed aerial vehicles, supply them with high-quality pictures that collect information with centimeter-level of accuracy, higher resolution than certain widely used satellite or airborne data sets.

The hunt for Brian Laundrie in the Carlton Reserve in Florida seems to have escalated in its third week after a big drone was seen being deployed by police in the region. Laundrie was last seen at the Carlton Reserve on January 31.

Hartford (CT) Police announced the launch of a new drone program. The drone program has been in the works for years to enhance public safety. The small unmanned aircraft is already being used in operations and will replace the work of multiple officers. Four officers are licensed with the FAA to operate the high-end drones. The first time the drone was used was last month in Keney Park in the search for an 8-year-old missing boy. The boy was ultimately found at a neighbor's house, but the drone replaced multiple officers.

The Law Enforcement Drone Association is holding its second annual, sold-out national conference in Bend, Oregon. Law enforcement officers are being taught the “best practices and standardization of the use of drones in public safety,” the organization says.

Cloud Ground Control, created by Ripper and Advanced Navigation, will assist to monitor Queensland beaches in Australia with the help of drones this summer.

Drone photography and videography

These drone photos will show you the world in new lights
Drone Photography Awards 2021 airborne video captures everything from a couple sunbathing on an iceberg to an unsettling flock of sheep.

Drone warfare

Opinion: After the deadly error in Afghanistan, maybe drones shouldn't be used to kill at all. On Aug. 29, a US military Drone Strike allegedly killed an Islamic State terrorist in Kabul, although the victim was a longstanding Afghan charity worker. He died with nine extended family members, including seven children. Zamarai Ahmadi, a 43-year-old humanitarian worker, wanted to go to America with his family when Kabul fell to the Taliban. I know because I requested his emergency evacuation a few days before he died, writes John Bradley, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general for The Washington Post.

In The Atlantic, Ian Fritz writes about what he learned while hunting humans and how our drone policy led to the deaths of seven children.

The seven children killed on August 29 were not in this category. We now know that none of them, nor the three adults also killed in the strike, was even remotely associated with the enemy. No—these people were killed because of an age-old combination of fear and faith.

Iran's Armed-Drone Prowess Reshapes Security in Middle East. Tehran uses off-the-shelf components to build armed drones used in attacks that challenge the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East, reports the WSJ.

As Turkey's counter-terrorism effort continues, these drone strikes are certain to continue. Ankara has no reason to intervene. Despite the attacks' obvious debilitating effects on the PKK's capabilities, they will not incapacitate or terminate its four-decade-long struggle. That means greater friction between Washington and its counter-ISIS allies in Syria as a consequence of Turkey's drone attacks.

Drones on YouTube

https://youtu.be/dGlCVJgmcDk

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