Finally, someone decided to answer the question that nobody was asking: what if [Benjamin Franklin] had had a drone rather than a kite? Continue reading
Category Archives: Research
FAA Awards $2.8M in Drone Research Grants to Five Universities
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced $2.8 million in drone research, education and training grants to five universities. Research will focus on three areas: Advanced material, right-of-way rules, and flight data recorder requirements. Continue reading
Drones and Facial Recognition Tech to help save Australia’s koalas
In Adelaide, South Australia, a Flinders University College of Science and Engineering research project with conservation charity Koala Life and the State Government is developing non-invasive koala monitoring techniques with drones and a special facial recognition software program to count, identify and re-identify koalas in wild populations. Continue reading
Winged Microchip is Smallest-Ever Human-Made Flying Structure
Northwestern University engineers have added a new capability to electronic microchips: flight. About the size of a grain of sand, the new flying microchip (or “microflier”) does not have a motor or engine. Instead, it catches flight on the wind — much like a maple tree’s propeller seed — and spins like a helicopter through the air toward the ground. Continue reading
Office of Naval Research Gives Ideal Aerosmith $17M Research Contract
Senator John Hoeven announced that the Office of Naval Research (ONR) has awarded a $17 million contract to Ideal Aerosmith in Grand Forks. Under the contract, Ideal Aerosmith will develop an Expeditionary Mission Support Station, which: Continue reading
Universal Hydrogen Announces New R&D Centre in Toulouse
Historic Hangar B16 at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport
Universal Hydrogen Co., a company fighting to decarbonize aviation through the adoption of hydrogen as a universal fuel, announced that after an extensive search process that it will locate its second engineering and design center in Toulouse, France, Europe’s leading city for aviation manufacturing and innovation. Continue reading
Swedish Study on Defibrillator Delivery by Drone
In this prospective clinical trial carried out by the Department of Medicine, Centre for Resuscitation Science, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, three AED-equipped drones were placed within controlled airspace in Sweden, covering approximately 80 000 inhabitants (125 km2). Continue reading
Microwave-Powered Rocket Propulsion Gets a Boost
Drone experiment setup, including the microwave emitting antenna and free-flying drone
Researchers led by the University of Tsukuba are using drone experiments to explore the possibility of launching rockets using a high-power beam of microwave radiation. Continue reading