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Aug 27

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Ghostfin uncrewed underwater drone surfacing in a city river at dusk, with a bridge and industrial waterfront in the background

Pennsylvania · Underwater drone

Navy Buys Attack Drone Subs Built in a Philly Marble Showroom

A 20-month-old Philadelphia startup is building 425-pound Ghostfin attack drone submarines for the U.S. Navy and Taiwan inside a former marble showroom.

Haye KestelooAug 275 min read

Students in the Fly Like A Girl academy practicing drone piloting in South Fayette Township

Education

Fly Like A Girl Turns Pittsburgh Teens Into Drone Pilots

The Fly Like A Girl academy outside Pittsburgh has trained more than 100 high school girls to fly drones since 2023 and helped nearly a dozen of them earn FAA Part 107 certificates.

Rafael SuárezJul 25

DJI

MIT and Penn Open-Source MIGHTY, a Drone Motion Planner That Cuts Out Six-Figure Commercial Software

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…

Haye KestelooMay 28

National Guard Expands Small Drone Training

United States

Drone Operators Trained for Modern Combat at Fort Indiantown Gap

At Fort Indiantown Gap, the quiet February air is buzzing, not with helicopters, but with something smaller, sharper, and far more personal: drones. For ten days, as the National Guard reports, soldiers from across different units and specialties gathered to attend a small unmanned aircraft system operator course, known in military shorthand as sUAS The…

Rafael SuárezFeb 28

Overhead black-and-white view of a DJI Phantom quadcopter surrounded by folding DJI Mavic drones and other multirotors arranged on a white surface

United States

Army R.E.D. Drone With Arms Wins Innovation Title

At the U.S. Army’s inaugural Best Drone Warfighter Competition, one team showed up with something straight out of a robotics lab fever dream. A drone. With arms. That actually grabs things. And it won. Soldiers from the 28th Infantry Division took first place in the innovation category at the Army’s first Best Drone Warfighter Competition,…

Rafael SuárezFeb 23

DJI Matrice 30 series enterprise drone with 4G enhanced transmission.

DJI

Warrington Police Drone Finds Missing Man

A police drone made the difference between a long night and a safe reunion in Pennsylvania this week. On February 2 at 9:39 p.m., the Buckingham Township Police Department requested drone support from the Warrington Township Police Department to help locate a missing endangered man suffering from dementia, as Patch.com reported. Time was critical. Darkness…

Rafael SuárezFeb 16

DJI

DJI Drones Find Missing Dogs Alive in Arctic Cold

When the temperature drops below zero and the wind starts biting like a pack of wolves, hope can feel very small. That is exactly where Ella and Bebe’s family found themselves. The two Boxers slipped out during a brutal Arctic blast that swept across Northeast Ohio. Temperatures plunged to negative 3 degrees. Snow piled up…

Rafael SuárezFeb 12

Zipline

Zipline and Rwanda sign expansion agreement as country becomes first to build nationwide autonomous delivery

Zipline and the Government of Rwanda have signed an expansion agreement that makes Rwanda the first country to build a nationwide autonomous delivery network. The deal, announced February 5 by Zipline Rwanda, is the first expansion agreement under Zipline‘s $150 million U.S. State Department award. The signing comes as Zipline hits 2 million commercial drone…

Haye KestelooFeb 5

Pennsylvania

The drone industry moves fast. Stay ahead of it.