Technology

Drone technology coverage tracks the hardware and software layer underneath specific products, the sensors, autonomy systems and airframe designs that determine what any given drone can actually do.

Autonomy and AI are the fastest-moving piece of it, and not always in a reassuring direction: an Nvidia Jetson chip guided the Russian AI drone that killed three Ukrainians near Zaporizhzhia, showing how quickly commercial AI hardware ends up in targeting systems. On the research side, DARPA’s Lift Challenge results showed a conventional helicopter design beating experimental lift concepts at a 3.84:1 ratio, a reminder that not every technology bet pays off on schedule.

LiDAR has grown from a niche surveying payload into one of the largest technology desks on the site, and VTOL and eVTOL aircraft are developing into a genuinely separate industry from rotor-based consumer drones. Sensor technology keeps expanding what a drone can be used for in unexpected ways too: Rainmaker says its cloud-seeding drones made 143 million gallons of rain, and Florida calls the practice a felony, a case that sits at the intersection of drone technology and state law neither side anticipated.

Artificial Intelligence, thermal sensing and UTM airspace management round out the desk. Every drone technology story is in the feed below.