Lifeboat Foundation

The U.S. army will have pocket sized drones.

Nano drones have become a major military tool over the past few years, and the most recent announcement of FLIR Systems being awarded an additional $20.6 million contract for their Black Hornet 3 Personal Reconnaissance Systems (PRS) by the U.S. Army is one big example of that.

While the contract is huge, the FLIR Systems Black Hornet 3 is only the size of a cellphone. This extremely light and nearly silent drone can fly up to 25 minutes, and provide many military advantages in combat.

Continue reading “U.S. Army Awards Pocket-Sized Drones $20.6 Million Contract” »

Drones or unmanned vehicles are becoming a major threat as more and more countries are developing and relying on it. The latest conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia also saw extensive use of drones.

Netherlands-based technology companies Avy and Wattlab have conducted the first test flight of a drone prototype that is planned to be used in medical projects in Africa.

Wattlab, a Dutch clean-tech start-up founded by Sweden-based power utility Vattenfall and Delft University of Technology, and Netherlands-based drone manufacturer Avy have announced that a drone equipped with special solar foils produced by Wattlab has successfully performed its first test flight.

“The solar-powered prototype is designed to be used for urgent medical transportation, emergency services, and nature conservation,” the two companies stated, adding that the solar films were installed on the wings while maintaining aerodynamics and without increasing significantly the weight. “The solar technology developed in this project is fully integrated into the wing shape and adds no extra weight,” explained Bo Salet, founder of Wattlab.

Continue reading “PV-powered drone for emergency services” »

The Navy is exploring new options for replenishing its submarines out at sea, which could have broader impacts on how it resupplies all of its fleets.

Long range drone delivery – greater than 20 kilometers or about 12 miles – is emerging as a fast growing in the autonomous delivery market, according to a new research report. Short range autonomous delivery has gotten a lot of press recently as companies like Walmart, Amazon, Wing, and UPS…

SpaceX is targeting this weekend for its next Falcon 9 rocket launch from Kennedy Space Center, this time with another batch of Starlink internet satellites.

If schedules hold, teams will give the go-ahead for the 230-foot rocket to launch from pad 39A at 8:27 a.m. Sunday, the opening of an instantaneous window. It must launch at that time or delay to another day.

About eight minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s 162-foot first stage will target an autonomous landing on the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX’s fleet of ships and the booster should return to Port Canaveral a few days later.

Of all the many eVTOL personal flight machines we’ve seen lately, this one’s caused the most discussion in the now-virtual New Atlas office. The work of a young Canadian company, the Atlas is a 4-rotor manned multicopter design, in which all four of its ducted rotors are inline along a single wing.

My first thought upon seeing it was “why?” Every other design places props on at least four corners, indeed sometimes even more spread out in designs like the Volocopter. That ensures it’s easy to maintain stability in a hover against shifting winds, with the instant torque of the electric motors driving the props able to respond and re-balance the aircraft in fractions of a second.

On second look, though, the Watfly design might have more to it than meets the eye. It’s based upon a less common drone design – the tailsitter – which could confer its own advantages. Tailsitters give you the efficiency advantages of winged flight — and some of the same control surfaces – without a lot of the complexities of many tilt-rotor designs. The whole aircraft tilts once you’re up to speed, and you fly on the wing for the majority of your journey.

China shows off its ability to rapidly launch 48 weaponized drones from the back of a truck, as well as from helicopters.

Gadfin, or “wings” in Aramaic—its flagship aircraft hovers like a UAV and folds out wings to fly like a plane—is hoping to connect Israeli hospitals with drone supply networks and has its sights set on providing essential services in remote Third World locations.