Lifeboat Foundation

Specialized Atlanta-based UAV consulting firm Skyfire is itself launching into aerial action with the release of its SF2 drone, which is designed and manufactured specifically for public safety and critical sector operators.

Skyfire’s entry into specialized drone manufacturing with the SF2 was motivated by the understanding, insight, and feedback it gathered in its work with hundreds of US public safety and critical sector clients as they navigated the Federal Aviation’s certification of authorization process. Relying on that information flow from diverse partners, Skyfire decided to provide solutions to shortcomings and close operational gaps it was hearing about.

Draganfly is celebrating a major health and safety milestone with its spraying drones disinfecting more than 500,000 seats using the company’s proprietary pathogen and surface sanitizer technology.

The company’s spraying technology was also implemented ahead of NASCAR’s June 2021 tripleheader weekend at the Nashville Superspeedway and Barrett-Jackson’s March 2021 collector car auction in Arizona.

DJI is rolling out a new firmware update for the Mavic Air 2 drone. At the same time, the technology giant is updating the DJI Fly app to version 1.5.10.

According to DJI’s release notes, the update “optimizes user experience and improves overall software stability.”

For those building their own remote controlled devices like RC boats and quadcopter drones, having a good transmitter-receiver setup is a significant factor in the eventual usability of their build. Many transmitters are available in the 2.4 GHz band, but some operate at different frequencies, like the 868/915 MHz band. The TBS Crossfire is one such transmitter, and it’s become a popular model thanks to its long-range performance.

When [g3gg0] bought a Crossfire set for his drone, he discovered that the receiver module consisted of not much more than a PIC32 microcontroller and an SX1272 LoRa modem. This led him to ponder if the RF protocol would be easy to decode. As it turns out, it was not trivial, but not impossible either. First, he built his own SPI sniffer using a CYC1000 FPGA board to reveal the exact register settings that the PIC32 sent to the SX1272. The Crossfire uses channel hopping, and by simply looking at the register settings it was easy to figure out the hopping sequence.

Continue reading “Reverse Engineering A 900 MHz RC Transmitter And Receiver” »

For the first time, researchers have created a metasurface lens that uses a piezoelectric thin film to change focal length when a small voltage is applied. Because it is extremely compact and lightweight, the new lens could be useful for portable medical diagnostic instruments, drone-based 3D mapping and other applications where miniaturization can open new possibilities.

“This type of low-power, ultra-compact varifocal lens could be used in a wide range of sensor and imaging technologies where system size, weight and cost are important,” said research project leader Christopher Dirdal from SINTEF Smart Sensors and Microsystems in Norway. “In addition, introducing precision tunability to metasurfaces opens up completely new ways to manipulate light.”

Dirdal and colleagues describe the new technology in the journal Optics Letters. To change focal length, a voltage is applied over lead zirconate titanate (PZT) membranes causing them to deform. This, in turn, shifts the distance between two metasurface lenses.

Why waste a perfectly good (but obsolete) fighter?

It sure looks like China is converting Cold War fighters into flying drones. Dozens of Shenyang J-16 fighter planes, spotted in satellite photos, are still present at China’s military airfields, despite the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) retiring the type in 2010. China could use the planes in a conflict, either masquerading them as modern jets, or using the drones to carry out combat missions of their own.

Continue reading “It Sure Looks Like China Is Turning Old Fighter Jets Into Drones” »

On-demand drone delivery specialist Flytrex releases booming activity growth for 2021 in three North Carolina communities it serves.

While the development of all kinds of next-generation aviation and UAV activity merits the attention it attracts, the reality is a lot of what’s afoot is still in early-phase operation or testing. That work-in-progress status makes seeing quantified metrics in advanced applications like those released today by drone delivery specialist Flytrex particularly useful in measuring rates of progress.

Continue reading “Flytrex releases stats on expanding US drone delivery activity” »

Located near Austin, Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas is expected to start producing Model Ys for customers before the end of this quarter.

A new shape-shifting material out of Virginia Tech can be used to give robots the power to transform smoothly between different shapes — like going from a drivable robot to a flying drone.

The challenge: Most of today’s robots are really good at one function — drones are designed to fly, but they can’t swim, and wheeled bots can drive, but they can’t fly.

The few exceptions typically use complex systems of motors, gears, and hinges to reconfigure themselves into different shapes suited for different tasks, but every extra part is a new potential point of failure.