Miscellaneous

From military weapons expos in Jordan to idyllic SoCal beaches, we caught up with some of those who are building and selling unmanned aerial vehicles all over the world, and even convinced a few companies to let us take their flying spy robots for a spin.

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This week, Will, Norm, and Jeremy discuss Apple buying Beats, the politics of quadcopters, the FCC's current stance on net neutrality, and the next entry in the Mario Kart series. Enjoy!

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When compared to a Black Hornet autonomous micro-helicopter, the Anna's hummingbird (seen at various speeds) was 27% more efficient at hovering. This Stanford University research could lead to bird-inspired helicopters and other engineering advances.

Article "What Tiny Drones Can Learn from Hummingbirds"

by Elizabeth Palermo
July 30, 2014

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We used the DJI Phantom 2 and a whole fleet of other drones. Read the full report here:

"The drone you should buy right now"
For flying, for photos — there's no cooler toy right now than a drone

by Ben Popper
July 31, 2014

We took five drones for a spin at the skate park besides New York City's Rockaway beach. Some fun flights, wild crashes, and amazing video were the result. If you've always wondered which drone to buy, we've got recommendations for the ambitious hobbyist and the true beginner.

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In a 10-week engineering course at Stanford, students learn to design, build and fly small unmanned aerial vehicles.

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Remote controlled drones look like a lot of fun, but there are some good reasons to leave this hobby alone.

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The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has successfully operated three fully autonomous, collaborating UAVs. The machines flew in close formation at the same altitude, separated by approximately 50 meters as they executed figure-eight patterns.

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NASA's Parimal Kopardekar, Box's Aaron Levie, and SkyCatch's Christian Sanz tell Darrell Etherington about exploring the infrastructure and opportunities presented by unmanned aerial systems.

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Cirque du Soleil, ETH Zurich, and Verity Studios have partnered to develop a short film featuring 10 quadcopters in a flying dance performance. The collaboration resulted in a unique, interactive choreography where humans and drones move in sync. Precise computer control allows for a large performance and movement vocabulary of the quadcopters and opens the door to many more applications in the future.

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This one-hour television special from TVW looks at the growing popularity of civilian drones, and the privacy questions they raise. TVW introduces you to hobbyists who are flying drones for fun, as well as professionals who want to use them for things like selling real estate or growing grapes. We also take you inside Washington's booming drone industry, where unmanned aerial systems are built primarily for military customers. And finally, we show you how police and Washington state agencies could use the technology -- and hear from those who say government drones threaten your civil rights.

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Let's admit it: aerial photo drones and UAVs are a little creepy, and they come with big regulatory and safety problems. But aerial photos can be a powerful way of telling the truth about the world: the size of a protest, the spread of an oil spill, the wildlife hidden in a delta. Sergei Lupashin demos Fotokite, a nifty new way to see the world from on high, safely and under control.

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While shooting some video of a golf course a swarm of bees attacked my DJI Phantom Quadcopter. The blades and body of the craft was covered in sliced and diced bee guts afterward.

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Professor Ella Atkins, Aerospace Engineering, will be giving a seminar to the Aerospace Department about FAA regulations and UAV’s.
Professor Atkins' research program focuses on the integration of strategic and tactical planning and optimization algorithms to enable robust, autonomous aircraft and spacecraft flight in the presence of system failures and environmental uncertainties. Onboard automation must enhance performance while maintaining safe long-term operation robust to unexpected or failure scenarios. Mission and trajectory planners must yield acceptable low-cost solutions for single vehicles or coordinated teams operating nominally or, worst-case, in unfriendly, uncertain environments with degraded performance characteristics. Researchers have begun to speak of humans "on the loop" rather than "in the loop". Under this paradigm, humans are the mission managers and theatre commanders supported by an array of computational tools. These tools must acquire and accurately summarize mission-critical information for human supervisors while providing the underlying infrastructure that plans and executes missions in accordance with specified high-level directives. Hardware-based demonstration of single-vehicle and collaborative systems is a key component of Dr. Atkins' research. Current platforms include the Solus UAV and a planetary surface rover

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A crash for a typical model aircraft can mean disaster in the form of dollar signs and hours of labor. Enter 3-D printing, which allows for quick modification and the rapid creation of replacement parts. The University of Virginia and Mitre Corporation have teamed up to create a fully autonomous, hand-launchable drone made using a 3-D printer and off-the-shelf parts.

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Watch the moment a drone and a kangaroo got up close!

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Some help from the titans of the semiconductor industry has lead to critical breakthroughs in sense and avoid technology.

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Two Verge staffers took to the desert at CES last week to settle one of history's greatest questions: are drones cooler than cars?

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