Tag Archives: unmanned aerial vehicles

IAI to Acquire Bluebird for $29M

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is in advanced negotiations to acquire Israeli drone manufacturer Bluebird Aero Systems Ltd. at a valuation of NIS 100 million (approximately $29 million), according to people with knowledge of the deal who spoke to Calcalist under the condition of anonymity. Continue reading →

Wing Now Dropping Library Books to Kids

Kelly Passek has thought up a way to get kids to read this summer: deliver library books by drone. Passek, a middle-school librarian, was one of the first customers of a drone delivery service launched in Christiansburg, Va., last year by Wing, a company owned by Google parent Alphabet. After seeing how quickly her household goods and meals were delivered, she petitioned the company to take on library books, too. The company said yes, and the first books fly out this week. Continue reading →

AeroVironment Gets NATO $80M Potential Contract

Puma 3AE

AeroVironment, Inc.  announced its receipt of two firm-fixed-price orders totalling $9,804,448 from the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). The orders, received on March 5, 2020 and April 16, 2020, encompass the procurement of Raven and Puma 3 AE tactical UAS and spares. Delivery for the first order is anticipated by August 2020 and the second order by October 2020. Continue reading →

Elistair Unveils the Safe-T 2 Tethered Drone Station

Elistair has announced the release of the Safe-T 2, their most advanced and powerful tethering system for use with commercially available drones. Key Features include, IP54 rating, up to 125m / 400 feet of micro-tether, 2 200 watts max continuous power, a fiber optics option, and industry leading weight/power ratio from its patented Dynamic Voltage Optimization (DVO). The Safe-T 2 provides users with unmatched power efficiency and enables safe and persistent flight time for UAVs. Continue reading →

WiBotic Secures $5.7M Series A Financing Round

WiBotic, a Seattle company that specializes in advanced wireless charging and power optimization solutions for the rapidly expanding ecosystem of aerial, mobile and marine robots, announced that it has secured $5.7 million in Series A funding. Investors include Junson Capital, SV Tech Ventures, Rolling Bay Ventures, Aves Capital, The W Fund and WRF Capital, amongst others. Continue reading →

Improving Drone Collision Avoidance with Stereo Cameras

Three drones were used as target drones in the experiments in order to evaluate the generalization capability of the model to different drone modalities

Recently, a team of researchers from Madrid Polytechnic University, MIT, and Texas A&M University produced real-world results in active collision monitoring and avoidance by building an integrated system of a simple camera and data processing setup well suited for smaller drones. Continue reading →