Toggle light / dark theme

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.

With this second contract, FLIR Systems will be providing the service with additional miniature reconnaissance drones as part of the ongoing soldier-borne sensor program, National Defense reports.

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.

In the future, the two tech companies are planning to reduce the wings’ weight, increase their surface, and deploy more solar films. “Solar cells with a higher efficiency will be tested in the coming month,” they further explained.

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.

As drones become better and better at everything they do, it’s only natural photographers and videographers alike start pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. This particular boundary push is not for the faint of heart, however. I’m reasonably new to the drone world. While I’d been keen to dip a toe for a long time, I had been waiting for commercial applications to justify the acquisition. Thankfully, I found a window and jumped right through it.