Category Archives: Research

Building Future Air Taxis to See Through the Fog

The frame of an unmanned aerial vehicle is installed at the end of a 180-foot-long chamber filled with fog at Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico

While the sun beat down on the New Mexico desert, inside, a dense fog hung in the air. In a special facility outside Albuquerque, a team of NASA researchers was working with the kind of fog that’s so thick you can’t see three feet in front of you. Continue reading

Stanford Engineers Create Perching Bird-Like Robot

Like snowflakes, no two branches are alike. They can differ in size, shape and texture; some might be wet or moss-covered or bursting with offshoots. And yet birds can land on just about any of them. This ability was of great interest to the labs of Stanford University engineers Mark Cutkosky and David Lentink – now at University of Groningen in the Netherlands – which have both developed technologies inspired by animal abilities. Continue reading

Flying High-Speed Drones into the Unknown with AI

When it comes to exploring complex and unknown environments such as forests, buildings or caves, drones are hard to beat. They are fast, agile and small, and they can carry sensors and payloads virtually everywhere. However, autonomous drones can hardly find their way through an unknown environment without a map. For the moment, expert human pilots are needed to release the full potential of drones. Continue reading

IEA: Using Drones to Identify Underperforming Solar Plants

Oliver Kunz testing PV Power Plant in Australia

The International Energy Agency (IEA) Photovoltaic (PV) Power System Programme, has released a comprehensive PV inspection methods report, showcasing a number of innovations used to inspect PV onsite with portable test equipment – such as the use of infrared inspection with drones. Continue reading