Drone policy, incidents, and industry news across the United States — from statehouses to the national airspace.
Researchers at MIT and the University of Pennsylvania have released MIGHTY, an open-source motion planner that lets drones react to obstacles in milliseconds using only onboard sensors and compute. The system, detailed in a paper accepted to IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters and announced by MIT, jointly optimizes flight path and travel time in a…
The Wyoming Police Department is going from one drone to three. The Wyoming City Council approved $26,226 for two new aircraft on May 18 in a 5-1 vote, with one council member dissenting on surveillance grounds. The department flew its existing drone 131 times in 2025, and command staff say the additional units will close…
The New York City Police Department now has trained officers and certified equipment to electronically disable hostile drones in city airspace, a capability reserved until December for a small group of federal agencies. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed the department spent $6.5 million on drone mitigation gear at a May 21 press conference at One…
U.S. Army Special Forces and a Romanian Air Force crew dropped autonomous cargo gliders over North Macedonia during Trojan Footprint 26, the largest U.S.-led special operations exercise in Europe. The aircraft were DZYNE’s Grasshopper resupply gliders, the same family the Air Force quietly fielded last year. The exercise wrapped on May 21 after ten days…
The U.S. Navy is working to pair its SEAL mini-submarines with uncrewed underwater vehicles, sending robotic scouts ahead of operators into the most defended stretches of any covert mission. Navy Captain Mike Linn confirmed the program at SOF Week 2026 in Tampa, where he heads the Naval Special Warfare program office. The goal is straightforward.…
The Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Protection (DFFP) used its Unmanned Aerial Systems Module to identify hot spots and spot fires across the Gerstle River during the Sawmill Creek Fire, helping ground crews achieve 100 percent containment four days after ignition. The fire was held to 14.8 acres on state land east of Delta…
The Seminole City Council voted 4-3 on May 12, 2026 to reject Walmart’s proposal for a Wing-operated drone delivery nest at the Walmart Supercenter at 10237 Bay Pines Blvd, blocking what would have been the company’s first launch site in Pinellas County. The decision marks the first municipal-level rejection inside Walmart and Wing’s broader Tampa…
The Coconino County Sheriff’s Office in Flagstaff, Arizona is using the latest AI-capable Skydio drones with the LOC8 G2 image-analysis platform to compress search and rescue photo review from thousands of drone images down to about twenty per mission. The agency also works with a Scotland-based company to build environment-specific AI models for Northern Arizona…
One email with the drone news that matters — DJI, FAA, public safety, and everything in between, straight from the newsroom. No spam, no fluff.
