Rafael Suárez is a drone journalist and content creator with more than 20 years behind the lens. He began in film photography in 1998, moved to digital in 2005, and has been flying and filming with drones since 2016. As a commercial videographer he has produced work for premium brands including BMW, Porsche, and MINI, and his documentary work champions a #flysafe mentality across the industry. Based in Quito, Ecuador, he covers drone news, hardware, and the policy and business shaping the industry for DroneXL, and shares reviews and cinematic flight on his YouTube channel. A dad and a lifelong aviation nerd, he's happiest when something is in the air.
Russia is scaling its drone warfare program at a pace that should get the attention of anyone watching the Ukraine conflict. Deputy Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant General Anatoly Kontsevoy announced at a Federation Council meeting that the Russian Armed Forces plan to train more than 70,000 drone specialists this year, according to Voennoedelo.…
Draganfly and Palladyne AI have completed another step in their autonomous swarm program, and this one moves the technology closer to actual defense operations. The two companies announced in a press release the successful integration of Palladyne AI’s SwarmOS platform across Draganfly’s mission-ready drone components, validated through a completed flight simulation. It is not a…
Lockheed Martin has selected Fortem Technologies to field an autonomous counter-drone system for critical infrastructure protection, pairing Fortem’s TrueView radar sensors and DroneHunter interceptors with Lockheed’s own Sanctum C-UAS Mission Management software, as reported by The Defense Post. The result is a layered, hardware-plus-software kill chain that is designed to detect, track, and neut
Engineers at Rutgers University have designed a solid-state ornithopter, a bird-like flying robot with no motors, no gears, and no mechanical linkages of any kind, and proven in simulation that it can fly. The catch is honest and refreshingly so: the materials needed to build it in the physical world don’t exist yet. The research…
For the first time on public record, American forces have disclosed live-fire drone interception training during a combined exercise with South Korea. U.S. Marine Corps forces deployed from Okinawa, Japan, conducted the training on March 18 at the Daecheon Shooting Range using Stinger portable surface-to-air missiles to shoot down MQM-171A BroadSword target drones configured to…
Kansas State University Salina is bringing together law enforcement, fire departments, and emergency management agencies for a full day of drone education and hands-on demonstrations on April 22, connecting public safety professionals with UAS experts, FAA representatives, and the vendors building the hardware they’re already flying in the field, as reported by The Salina Post.…
The Pardubice facility produces the AT-300 thermal imaging sight, the primary thermal optic for the Stugna-P anti-tank guided missile system
A Lakewood Police Department drone operation on Colfax Avenue resulted in five arrests last Saturday after agents used a Skydio X10 to watch three separate hand-to-hand drug transactions in real time before moving in on the suspects. The operation was straightforward in the best possible way. Agents patrolling the intersection of Colfax and Teller observed…
One email with the drone news that matters — DJI, FAA, public safety, and everything in between, straight from the newsroom. No spam, no fluff.
