Lifeboat Foundation

How do you teach an autonomous drone to fly itself? Practice, practice, practice. Now Microsoft is offering a way to put a drone’s control software through its paces millions of times before the first takeoff.

The cloud-based simulation platform, Project AirSim, is being made available in limited preview starting today, in conjunction with this week’s Farnborough International Airshow in Britain.

Continue reading “Microsoft’s Project AirSim is pushing drone simulation software to new heights” »

This new AI-powered drone can resist strong winds and continue its flight thanks to a deep-learning technique created by Caltech engineers.

A new report says that Microsoft is moving to a three-year cadence for new versions of Windows, which would schedule Windows 12 to release on 2024 and set the stage for new Windows 11 features to release multiple times per year.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=gYMEcQ3OGqQ

The amphibious assault ship USS Essex can print parts on demand, reducing the need for inventory.

One of the U.S. Navy’s largest warships is now rocking a 3D printer, allowing the crew to quickly crank out replacement parts for drones. The service hopes that additive manufacturing technology will allow it to save time and money, reducing the need to stock spare parts on hand, especially when a ship is at sea. It believes that 3D printers could someday become standard issue on every warship.

Continue reading “The Navy is Using 3D Printers to Turn Warships Into Weapons Factories” »

EPFL researchers have used swarms of drones to measure city traffic with unprecedented accuracy and precision. Algorithms are then used to identify sources of traffic jams and recommend solutions to alleviate traffic problems.

Given the wealth of modern technology available—roadside cameras, big-data algorithms, Bluetooth and RFID connections, and smartphones in every pocket—transportation engineers should be able to accurately measure and forecast city traffic. However, current tools advance towards the direction of showing the symptom but systematically fail to find the root cause, let alone fix it. Researchers at EPFL utilize a monitoring tool that overcomes many problems using drones.

“They provide excellent visibility, can cover large areas and are relatively affordable. What’s more, they offer greater precision than GPS technology and eliminate the behavioral biases that occur when people know they’re being watched. And we use drones in a way that protects people’s identities,” says Manos Barmpounakis, a post-doc researcher at EPFL’s Urban Transport Systems Laboratory (LUTS).

The U.S. announced on Friday a new $820 million Ukraine military aid that includes the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS). The Pentagon contract denotes the start of a contracting process for a significant amount of equipment, including four more counter-artillery radars and up to 150,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition, through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

NASAMS can be quite an unpleasant adversary for tactical aircraft (possibly with the exception of the Su-57), helicopters, drones, subsonic cruise missiles (Caliber, Kh-101, 9M728). Against high-speed targets (from Oniks to Kinzhal) the benefit of this system seems doubtful.

5/— Dmitry Stefanovich (@KomissarWhipla) July 1, 2022

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Future battlefields will employ ever-more technology, whether that battlefield is on earth, in the sea, in space, or in cyberspace. Today we will examine the roles robots, drones, artificial intelligence, armored suits, and nanotech may play in the future of war.

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Continue reading “The Next Century of War” »

Circa 2017

Zipline, a U.S. startup, is helping deliver life-saving blood supplies to rural areas of Rwanda by drones in record time.