Self Flying Drone

The Federal Aviation Administration expects to deliver a prototype of an automated flight certification system this year that will allow a self flying drone to fly in controlled airspace, the agency administrator said.

“This sets up what is really true integration of unmanned aircraft working in the same space as traditional manned aircraft,” Administrator Michael Huerta said May 3 at Bloomberg Government’s Next Tech event in Washington.

Under current FAA regulations, drone pilots only can operate in space up to 400 feet and their vehicles must remain in line of sight. They’re prohibited from flying over people, which rules out most urban areas, and from flying within 5 miles of an airport without notifying air traffic control.

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And people underestimate how many airports there are. Strict interpretation of the 5-mile rule means drone operators in the “whole state of New Jersey” can’t fly with without waivers, Huerta said. The current waiver process takes about 90 days and requires operators file flight plans that are then evaluated and reviewed. FAA’s automated system aims to speed that up considerably.

The Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability, or LAANC, will provide maps, a third-party application, and instant answer for flight plans. If approved, Huerta said the system also will automatically notify air traffic control.

FAA air traffic control historically relies on a manual process: Pilots call into air traffic control for the 50,000 flights in controlled airspace that happen each day. It took 100 years to get up to the 320,000 or so planes today, Huerta said. Compare that to the more than 800,000 drones the agency registered in a year.

The sheer numbers mean FAA and its partners NASA and various technology companies continue to look at how automation and “self-separation” play roles in the UAS Traffic Management system expected sometime in 2019.

But FAA isn’t going to flip a switch that allows drones to fly freely in the sky. Instead, Huerta said the agency aims for regular progress in “staged integration,” pressing for the highest level of safety and issue new rules when it’s satisfied with the answers.

The agency continues to work with industry partners on technological solutions to some of its pressing concerns. For example, before the agency allows operators to fly drones beyond line of sight, it needs to be satisfied sense-and-avoid technology can effectively avoid collisions.

And what happens if a drone crashes into a crowd at a concert or a random (but unfortunate) person hanging out in a park?

The agency recently released a report on drone/human collisions, some of which could be mitigated by encouraging manufacturers to use softer materials, shielded blades and software that creates a controlled descent.

“If we wanted to accept no risk, we wouldn’t allow them at all,” Huerta said.

Drone with Camera Amazon

BATON ROUGE — That buzzing you hear from the ditch may soon not only be the beating wings of flitting mosquitoes but the propellers of a large, flying mosquito killer.

In Ascension Parish, officials are close to buying a new aerial drone able to fly, hover and spray up to 20 pounds of chemicals at a time in hard-to-reach areas where mosquitoes breed.
And in Lafayette Parish, a private mosquito control company is using drones to scout for breeding sites.
David Matassa, Ascension’s director of mosquito control and brother of Parish President Kenny Matassa, said the drone with camera amazon can spray with a precision that would allow parish workers to save on cost and limit environmental impact compared with more broadly applied aerial methods. The drone, for instance, could be used to spray a ditch along a heavily traveled road with no shoulder that’s traditionally been unsafe and hard to spray.
“This is the state of the art. This is the turning corner of mosquito control as far as programs in the country going toward this type of technology,” David Matassa said.
While a parish worker is still in training and working on licensing requirements with the Federal Aviation Administration, Matassa said, the drone, which will cost $5,000 to $8,000, could be flying parish skies in time for the peak mosquito season.
The remotely operated drone won’t replace the trucks and planes that already spray periodically through the parish and which kill the adult mosquitoes.
The drone, which can spray 80 acres in a day’s work, will be used to kill larvae growing in standing water, taking out the next generation of mosquitoes before they take flight.

“That’s actually one of the most important things you can do to control the population of mosquitoes, is larvicide,” he said.
Technology pioneered by the U.S. military to observe the battlefield and, later, to kill militants, remotely controlled aerial drones are being envisioned in a growing number of civilian applications, from Amazon’s promises to revolutionize delivery with its Octocopter to experiments to use drones to monitor Gulf Coast hurricanes.
FIGHTING DISEASE
In the Gulf South, mosquito control remains a public health concern as the flying blood-suckers pose a disease risk to the population, including West Nile and Zika virus.
The drone that Ascension Parish is looking at buying — a circular, tail-less craft with eight mini-props and a tank on the bottom — had its origins in remote-control helicopters developed to spray terraced rice paddies in the hillsides of Japan, China and southeast Asia where it is difficult to bring in land-based spray equipment.
Logan Noess, one of the owners of Maverick Drone Systems of Savage in Minnesota, said those early craft, developed about 15 years ago, cost around $100,000. The latest version costs 10 percent of those early craft. The cheaper variety has drawn the interest of local governments, including Ascension Parish, he said.
Noess, whose company is a U.S. dealer for the Chinese-built craft, a DJI Agras MG-1, said his company recently conducted a series of demonstrations in eight to 10 Louisiana parishes following a national conference of mosquito control officials.
“We were just spraying water out in fields, and from everything we have seen, it should work great,” he said.
Matassa, who went to that conference and witnessed a demonstration, speculated that Ascension may be the first in the state to use a drone for aerial spraying but likely won’t be the only one for long. He said he has spoken with other program directors, and many are eyeing drones for similar uses.
“I guarantee you within a few years, most all (mosquito control) programs will have them,” Matassa said.
Matassa said the drone can fly a few hundred feet high and 8,000 feet over land in a few minutes. While the drone could be outfitted with cameras, parish officials plan to focus on the spray technology, he said.
The contractor who handles mosquito control for Lafayette’s City-Parish government already uses smaller, cheaper drones but for a different application.
Glenn Stokes, owner of Mosquito Control Contractors Inc., said he uses a few $1,500 drones outfitted with surveillance cameras to look for hard-to-access breeding sites, including the parish’s more than 1,000 residential and commercial detention and retention ponds, but he does not yet use drones for spraying.

‘GREAT POTENTIAL’
Because of the expense, that would require a change in the City-Parish contract, he said.
“The drones have a great potential, and I think you know they will be more and more in use, and at some point in time, that’s going to be in the future, they could actually replace inspectors,” Stokes said.
The use of camera-outfitted drones by businesses, law enforcement and even Stokes’ operation has generated privacy concerns, however. Stokes said his company only looks into the yards of homes that are abandoned or for which the company has received permission, though he said a major public health scare could result in broad surveys of breeding locations.
“It’s a delicate line,” Stokes said of the use drones and privacy rights.

Sky Viper Drone

The Sky Viper Drone is a racing drone, but with a twist. Available for about $90, It comes with four beacons that the drone can detect. Place these around your flying field and you’ve created an impromptu racing track. A companion app records when the beacons are detected. The combination of drone, beacons and the free app allows you to time races or create an obstacle course that the drone has to navigate. If you have more than one Hover Drone, it also creates power-ups and power-downs that you can use on your opponents, Mario Kart-style. It’s a fun spin on the idea of drone racing, and the Hover Drone is a simple drone to fly.

Design
The Hover Drone itself is a medium-size quadcopter, measuring about 11 x 10.5 x 3 inches. It’s mostly made of black plastic with some colored plastic trim to give the drone a racing look. Four 4-inch, three-blade rotors surround the body, with each rotor surrounded by a plastic ring protecting the blades.
Credit: Richard BaguleyCredit: Richard Baguley
The Hover Drone doesn’t feel particularly robust, but it stood up to many crashes and dings in our tests. Two red LEDs light up when the drone is powered on, indicating the back of the craft, but there are no other blink-y lights. It’s powered by a small 3.7V, 650mAh lithium polymer battery, which slides into the drone body and can be charged with the included USB cable.

As for the beacons, they’re small rectangles a couple of inches tall, with a faux radar dish on top. Set these on the ground and turn them on, and they project an invisible infrared signal that the drone can detect when it flies overhead. After installing the app and connecting it to the drone, the beacons are labeled and remembered by the app, so it knows which beacon the drone is flying over.
MORE: The Best Drones and Quadcopters on Any Budget
Unlike racing drones, such as the Aerix Black Talon, the Hover Drone lacks a forward-facing camera, so you can’t get a first-person view of where it’s going, and you can’t record and replay a video of your flights. Most novice pilots won’t miss this feature, even if it is the best way to replay a race and get tips for how to race better. Pilots who are more serious about racing and who want to practice may want to go with the Talon.
You are going to need a lot of AAA batteries to run the Hover Drone’s combination of controller and beacons: with three batteries for the remote and two for each of the beacons, you’ll use 11 batteries in all. These do last a long time, though: we didn’t deplete a full set after several hours of testing.
Specs
Rotors: 4 (3 blades per rotor) replaceable, 4-inch diameter
Battery Size: 3.7V 650-mAh Li-ion, removable
Battery Life: 7/7 minutes (claimed/tested)
Camera: None
Smartphone Controlled: Yes, Android & iOS app
FAA Registration: No
Size:
 10.5 by 9.3 by 2 inches
Weight: 3.9 oz
MORE: Why Drone Racing is the Next Big Sport
Controller
The Hover Drone’s remote is a small, light game-controller like device, with two control sticks and lots of buttons. Like its video-gaming brethren, the controller also has two shoulder buttons on each side. The front buttons handle power, control sensitivity (with three settings), takeoff and landing, and altitude. The shoulder buttons are for the stunts the drone can do and for triggering the virtual weapons in multiuser mode. The controller connects to the app over Bluetooth, and includes a small holder that will accommodate most small cellphones. (The Nexus 5X I used to test this drone fit snugly.) However, the holder did press on the phone’s volume buttons, so I had to place the 5X lopsidedly in the holder.
Credit: Richard BaguleyCredit: Richard Baguley
The other component for controlling the Hover Racer is the Hover Racer App, available for iOS and Android. This free app connects to the controller over Bluetooth and adds a lot of features to the drone. The app can set up time trials where it measures how quickly you can navigate a course between the beacons, competitive races with multiple users or even races with multiple drones if you have them. It’s a simple app that adds some interesting new twists to the flying experience and makes things such as competitive races much easier to run. We weren’t able to test this, but the app also allows up to four drones to connect and compete directly, and zap each other with virtual weapons, such as speed-ups or laser blasts that aid or hinder other pilots.

SkyViper also offers a flight-simulator app (again for iOS and Android) that can simulate the Hover Racer if you want to get some practice in. The controller is simulated with on-screen controls, but you do get a good feel for the flying experience. It simulates the drone well, including things like the range of the controller and the auto-launch and landing features, plus a series of challenges that teach the fundamentals of drone flying. It’s well worth checking out if you want to get some experience before you fly, or practice in bad weather.
MORE: Drone Buying Guide: Everything You Need to Know
Flying
Getting the Hover Drone into the air is simplicity itself: pull the left control stick down, then hold down the Auto Launch button for a few seconds, and the drone takes off and hovers a few feet above the ground. You can raise or lower the height with the altitude buttons, or fly around with the right control stick. The left stick only controls the heading of the drone: In this auto mode, the drone uses a sensor to detect the altitude and keep a certain distance above the ground. When it is time to land, press the same button and the drone gently lands. There is no GPS or return home feature, though: the drone will land wherever it is at the time.
A number of stunt moves are also included, which are started by holding one of the shoulder buttons and moving the right control stick. Stunt moves include a barrel roll, flip and a rather spectacular spiral landing, where the drone spirals downwards dramatically, then lands softly on the ground. Hard-core drone pilots will prefer to fly the Hover Drone in manual mode, which is achieved by holding down the shoulder stunt button and pressing the auto-takeoff button. In this mode, the auto-altitude feature is disabled and the pilot is in full control.

Amazon Drone

Amazon Drone service is expanding its development operations in Cambridge, opening another 60,000-square-foot site in addition to its facility at Castle Hill, Tech Crunch reports.

Amazon said the existing Castle Hill facility would be primarily used for drone-related research and development, after the new facility opens this fall. Meanwhile, teams working on projects related to Amazon devices — like the Kindle and Echo — will be moved to the new facility.

Although Amazon has hinted at plans to bring Prime Air to the US, its increased investment in the UK suggests otherwise. Amazon would face significant challenges in bringing its drone delivery program to the US right now. The Prime Air delivery program uses autonomous drones, conflicting with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations that require drones to be within sight of pilots. And even if regulations allowed Amazon to employ a drone program in the US — the FAA currently has a 2018 deadline to authorize commercial drone delivery — the company would face the high costs of enabling its US fulfillment centers for the tech.

Testing these drones in the UK will allow it to develop and scale an effective program that can be quickly built out in the US once the FAA allows for drone delivery, giving Amazon a huge advantage.

The parcel delivery industry — a segment of the shipping sector that deals with the transportation of packages to consumers — is booming thanks to e-commerce growth, and players outside the industry want a piece of the pie.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on the future of shipping that looks at efforts by Amazon, Alibaba, and Walmart to handle more of their own shipping and concludes that big retailers are well positioned to disrupt the parcel industry.

Here are some of the key points from the report:

Transportation and logistics could be the next billion dollar opportunity for e-commerce companies. The global shipping market, including ocean, air, and truck freight, is a $2.1 trillion market, according to World Bank, Boeing, and Golden Valley Co.
There is much at stake for legacy shipping companies, which have seen a boom in parcel delivery as e-commerce spending has risen. Twenty different partners currently share the duties of shipping Amazon’s 600 million packages a year, with FedEx, USPS, and UPS moving the most.
Amazon, Alibaba, and Walmart have so far focused on building out their last-mile delivery and logistics services but are increasingly going after the middle- and first-mile of the shipping chain.
Amazon has already made major moves across each stage of the shipping journey. It launched same-day delivery service, which it handles through its own fleet of carriers, cutting out any third-party shippers. The company also recently began establishing shipping routes between China and North America.
Walmart’s interest in expanding its transportation and logistics operations is almost purely related to cost-savings. It’s begun leasing shipping containers to transport manufactured goods from China and is making greater use of lockers and in-store pickup options to cut down on delivery costs.
Alibaba has begun leasing containers on ships, similar to Amazon’s Dragon Boat initiative. This means that Alibaba Logistics can now facilitate first-mile shipping for third-party merchants on its marketplace.
In full, the report:

Sizes the market for the shipping industry.
Explains how the industry operates in broad terms.
Suggests why major e-commerce retailers should disrupt the space.
Outlines the shipping initiatives of Amazon, Walmart, and Alibaba.
Concludes how these moves might impact traditional carriers.
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Phantom 4 Drone

DJI announced a new version of its Phantom 4 drone, the Phantom 4 Advanced, which offers many of the features of last year’s Phantom 4 Pro at a less expensive price point.

Those upgrades include a new camera, with a 1-inch, 20-megapixel sensor that can shoot 4K video at 60 fps, a variety of automatic flight modes (including Draw, ActiveTrack, TapFly, Gesture, and Tripod settings), and improved internal storage and battery life (up to 128GB via microSD and 30 minutes, respectively). The Phantom 4 Advanced still don’t quite match the Pro, though, with only front-facing obstacle avoidance instead of the four-sided system found on DJI’s pricer model.

Like the Pro, the Phantom 4 Advanced is also available in a Plus variant, that includes a controller with a 5.5-inch 1080p screen built in. According to DJI, the screen is twice as bright as conventional mobile displays for easier outdoor use.

The Phantom 4 Advanced is meant to directly replace the original Phantom 4, which DJI will stop selling when the Advanced releases on April 30th. The Phantom 4 Advanced will sell for $1,349, while the Phantom 4 Advanced Plus (which includes the integrated screen controller) will cost $1,649. For reference, the original Phantom 4 started at $1,399 when it first launched.

Lily Drone

Failed startup Lily drone sent a very short email to its preorder customers last night about how they can get their money back, but there wasn’t any information on how long that would take.

The company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy at the end of February in Delaware after being sued by the San Francisco District Attorney for misleading business practices.

The email looks to be a legal notice to customers with instructions on how to submit a request to get their money back.

Those who want a refund will now have to fill out a form, but there is no time frame for when payments will be returned.

Some customers report having already received refunds, but it’s unclear exactly how many have had their money returned. More than 61,000 people preordered a Lily drone between 2015 and 2016.

The company had amassed $34.8 million from those pre-sales, as well as $15 million in investment from high-profile Silicon Valley firms including Spark Capital, SV Angel, High Line Venture Partners, Sherpa Capital and Slow Ventures.

Lily aims to auction off its intellectual property in early June, according to its bankruptcy documents.

At various times during its rise and fall, Lily maintained that it was holding onto money in order to refund customers if necessary. Lily never shipped a single drone it sold.

The funds were kept in “cold storage,” a source close to the company told Recode. Similarly, in a December 2015 blog post, Lily claimed, “We have no plans to use a single cent of that money until your Lily Camera goes into final production.”

Customers hoping to receive a Lily drone put down a deposit of between $499 and $899, depending on how early their order was placed.

In its bankruptcy filing, the company claims it had begun processing refund requests “almost immediately after preorder sales started” in 2015.

While one customer emailed to let me know he received a refund from Lily, “as promised within five days,” dozens more have called or emailed since January complaining that they have not received their refund despite multiple attempts to contact the company.

By law, after shipping delays beyond 30 days, Lily is required to provide customers an option to be fully refunded or obtain consent for further delays. But Lily announced delay after delay without offering refunds. During this time, the company continued to collect preorder payments, according to the lawsuit from the district attorney.

Lily launched in 2015 with a dazzling promotional video that went viral, showcasing footage that was supposed to be from the Lily drone. But according to the lawsuit, the Lily drone wasn’t used to shoot the video.

Rather, the video was captured by a “GoPro mounted to a Lily prototype,” wrote Lily CEO Antoine Balaresque in an email obtained by the district attorney.

FAA Drone Registration

FAA Drone Registration now is active. They now require registration of drones and model aircraft
Did Santa deliver a drone this year? If so, Iowa City Airport Operations Specialist Michael Tharp reminds you that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires that it be registered — and if you do so by Jan. 20, you’ll save a registration fee.

Small unmanned aircraft (UAS) enthusiasts are considered aviators by the FAA. Therefore, drones and model aircraft that weigh between 0.55 and 55 pounds must be registered to ensure safe and responsible operation that will protect the owner/operator, others on the ground, and manned aircraft. If you operated your USA before Dec. 21, 2015, the deadline to register is Feb. 19, 2016. If your UAS was purchased after Dec. 21, you must register it before you operate it outdoors.

Owners may register through a user-friendly web-based system. The normal registration fee is $5, but in an effort to encourage people to register quickly, the FAA is waiving this fee through Jan. 20, 2016.

Registrants must be at least 13 years old, and will need to provide their name, home address and e-mail address. Upon completion of the registration process, a Certificate of Aircraft Registration/Proof of Ownership will be generated that will include a unique identification number for the UAS owner, which must be marked on the aircraft. Owners using the model aircraft for hobby or recreation will only have to register once and may use the same identification number for all of their model UAS. The registration is valid for three years.

The online registration system does not yet support registration of small UAS used for any purpose other than hobby or recreation – for example, using an unmanned aircraft in connection with a business. The FAA is developing enhancements that will allow such online registrations by spring of 2016.

Drone Flying

Drone flying into the rocks and ash of an erupting volcano seems like a guaranteed way of ensuring you’ll never see it again, but a team of researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge have so far benefited in a big way from such missions.
They’ve been using several bespoke fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to help them learn more about how and why volcanos erupt. Sending its sensor-laden flying machine over a highly active volcano in Guatemala recently, the team has been able to take accurate temperature, humidity, and thermal measurements from within the ash cloud itself.
Most spectacular, however, is the footage (above) captured by the drone’s camera as it soars high above the volcano and flies directly through the mass of material ejected into the sky above.
The remotely controlled aircraft was flown successfully beyond the line of sight at distances of up to 5 miles (8 km) away, and at 10,000 feet above the launch site.
“Drones offer an invaluable solution to the challenges of in-situ sampling and routine monitoring of volcanic emissions, particularly those where the near-vent region is prohibitively hazardous or inaccessible,” said Emma Liu, a volcanologist from the Department of Earth Sciences at Cambridge, in a release. “These sensors not only help to understand emissions from volcanoes, they could also be used in the future to help alert local communities of impending eruptions — particularly if the flights can be automated.”

Liu says in the video that the team flew the UAVs a number of times across several days over the summit of Volcán de Fuego to “observe and measure rapid changes in the shape of the summit crater and in the style of the explosions in the run up to an eruption.”
In the next stage of the project, the drones will carry additional sensors to measure the volcanic gases being released from Fuego.
“By analyzing the chemistry of these gases, and of lava, and building 3D models of the volcano’s shape and how this changes over time, we hope to improve our understanding of what is happening deep beneath the volcano, improving our ability to forecast when and how big the next eruption may be,” Liu said.
The researcher added that using drones to study volcanoes has enabled them to observe eruptions “closer than ever before, and take measurements that would otherwise never have been possible.”

Flying Drone with Camera

A proper Steadicam rig that can capture smooth tracking and chase shots usually requires thousands of dollars (not including the camera) and a highly-skilled operator. As a cheaper workaround, these filmmakers used a gyro-stabilized camera drone that they held in front of them like a traditional film camera.

The approach by Brazilian production house Space Criative is unorthodox, to say the least. But the results are impressive, and guerrilla filmmaking at its finest. Assuming that what we’re seeing in this color-corrected footage was actually captured by the DJI Phantom flying drone with camera, that is.

Another advantage to this approach, as demonstrated at the end of this video, is that the shot can change from a low-angle chase to an aerial view of the action when the videographer simply lets go of the drone and lets a pilot take over.

It also poses some unique challenges. Steadicam operators rely on a strategically-positioned video monitor to show them how a shot is framed and what obstacles they might run into or step on as they move. Because the tiny cameras on drones don’t have an LCD display with a live preview, the videographer here has to blindly frame a shot.

If filmed in 4K, it does result in plenty of resolution for cropping down the footage in post-production and tightening up the framing. But the results are still dependent on making sure the drone’s camera is perfectly angled while it’s being carried, which isn’t as easy as this videographer makes it look. However, if you’re on a tight budget, lots of practice will probably make this a cost-effective technique.

Small Drone with Camera

BRISTOL — A Kenosha company specializing in drone-aided aerial photography and mapping joined forces with a Bristol couple to host an International Small Drone with Camera Day event Saturday.

International Drone Day was founded three years ago by a West Coast couple looking to educate the public about drone technology. The main event is in Portland, Ore., this year, but there are about 180 smaller events being held around the world.

Adam Andrews, owner of Aeroworks Productions, tried for two years to host a local event, but was blocked from holding it in parks because of restrictions on drone use.

When Jill Gillmore read about Andrews’ trouble, she offered use of the farm she and her husband Matt own in Bristol.

“She just called me up out of the blue,” Andrews said.

Jill Gillmore said her 12-year-old son’s interested in drones prompted her offer.

“We have lots of people come out to enjoy the property,” she said, so allowing people to gather to talk drone technology seemed a natural fit.

On Saturday, small groups of people drifted in throughout the day, some bringing their own drones to show off.

Others check out the models Andrews had on hand, which ranged from drones he built from kits several years ago when the technology was young to models for hobbyists to a model large enough to carry a commercial-quality camera. A full-sized helicopter from Kenosha-based Midwestern Helicopter also flew in for the event

Andrews said he grew up interested in aviation. His father was a pilot, and he learned to fly when he was young.

Like many pilots, he was also interested in building and flying model aircraft. When drone technology came on the scene, he quickly gravitated toward that.

For the last several years, he has operated Aeroworks Productions full time, using drone technology for mapping, inspections and photography. Many of his clients are construction companies who use his services for property surveys. He also does drone training.

The event Saturday, which was free, was aimed at giving drone enthusiasts a chance to meet and for the public to learn about them.

“We really want people to come out and hear about what they can do,” he said.