Urban Air Port has chosen to build its first Air-One transport hub for autonomous delivery drones and electric flying cars next to the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, UK. The futuristic facility will launch later this year. It will support delivery drone and air taxi technology and eventually transport cargo and people across cities.
This is all thanks to automation and robotics, which is bringing in the age of unmanned warfare — towards a world where men won’t sacrifice their lives on the battlefield. And that’s why, a Singapore-based aviation company has unveiled the world’s first supersonic unmanned aircraft.
Reported first by DailyMail, this UAV drone (which has been named ‘Arrow’) is developed by Singapore-based Kelley Aerospace. The aircraft can touch speeds up to Mach 2.1 — more than twice the speed of sound.
The supersonic aircraft is roughly 16.8 tons in weight, but its carbon fibre monocoque design that it possesses helps it to sport strength and stiffness, as per the company’s claims. Its body is also equipped with a reduced radar cross-section and infrared signature to make sure it doesn’t grab the attention of the enemies.
Circa 2010
About 48 kilometers off the eastern coast of the United States, scientists from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, peered over the side of a small research vessel, the Arabella. They had just launched RU27, a 2-meter-long oceanographic probe shaped like a torpedo with wings. Although it sported a bright yellow paint job for good visibility, it was unclear whether anyone would ever see this underwater robot again. Its mission, simply put, was to cross the Atlantic before its batteries gave out.
Unlike other underwater drones, RU27 and its kin are able to travel without the aid of a propeller. Instead, they move up and down through the top 100 to 200 meters of seawater by adjusting their buoyancy while gliding forward using their swept-back wings. With this strategy, they can go a remarkably long way on a remarkably small amount of energy.
When submerged and thus out of radio contact, RU27 steered itself with the aid of sensors that registered depth, heading, and angle from the horizontal. From those inputs, it could dead reckon about where it had glided since its last GPS navigational fix: Every 8 hours the probe broke the surface and briefly stuck its tail in the air, which exposed its GPS antenna as well as the antenna of an Iridium satellite modem. This allowed the vehicle to contact its operators, who were located in New Brunswick, N.J., in the Rutgers Coastal Ocean Observation Lab, or COOL Room.
Researchers have published a study revealing their successful approach to designing much quieter propellers.
The Australian research team used machine learning to design their propellers, then 3D printed several of the most promising prototypes for experimental acoustic testing at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s specialized ‘echo-free’ chamber.
Results now published in Aerospace Research Central show the prototypes made around 15dB less noise than commercially available propellers, validating the team’s design methodology.
The legal rights of robots have expanded, at least in Pennsylvania. There, autonomous delivery drones will be allowed to maneuver on sidewalks and paths as well as roadways and will now technically be considered “pedestrians.” It’s the latest change in the evolving relationship between autonomous vehicles and humans.
And here we have the fruit pickers of the future. Hovering drones. 😃
This fleet of drones will pick fruit for you! Fruit production has exploded over the past few years, but so has food waste! Increased demand sometimes means unpi… See More.
Founded by Google veterans and backed by $340 million from major VCs, Skydio is creating drones that seem straight out of science fiction—and they could be flying around your neighborhood soon.
The technology could boost aerial robots’ repertoire, allowing them to operate in cramped spaces and withstand collisions.
If you’ve ever swatted a mosquito away from your face, only to have it return again (and again and again), you know that insects can be remarkably acrobatic and resilient in flight. Those traits help them navigate the aerial world, with all of its wind gusts, obstacles, and general uncertainty. Such traits are also hard to build into flying robots, but MIT Assistant Professor Kevin Yufeng Chen has built a system that approaches insects’ agility.
Chen, a member of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Research Laboratory of Electronics, has developed insect-sized drones with unprecedented dexterity and resilience. The aerial robots are powered by a new class of soft actuator, which allows them to withstand the physical travails of real-world flight. Chen hopes the robots could one day aid humans by pollinating crops or performing machinery inspections in cramped spaces.
