At its second meeting on Jan. 31 in Reno, Nevada, the Drone Advisory Committee (DAC) will continue to help the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) prioritize its efforts to integrate unmanned aircraft systems — or drones — into the national airspace.
FAA Administrator Michael Huerta announced the creation of the DAC as a federal advisory committee in May 2016, and the DAC first met in September 2016.
DAC members represent a wide array of stakeholders, including unmanned aircraft manufacturers and operators, traditional aviation groups, labor organizations, radio and navigation equipment manufacturers, airport operators and state and local officials.
The DAC’s main objective during its second meeting will be to review and potentially approve three task groups.
The first task group will review issues related to the roles and responsibilities of federal, state and local governments in regulating and enforcing drone laws. Many state and local governments have begun to enact a variety of laws about operating UAS in low-altitude navigable airspace.
The second task group will consider technological and regulatory mechanisms that would allow drone operators to gain access to the airspace beyond what the agency currently permits under the Small UAS Rule (commonly known as Part 107).
The DAC will also discuss the formation of a third task group, which will consider ways to fund the expanded provision of services needed to support UAS integration.
The Vanilla Aircraft VA001 flew for 56 hours recently over Las Cruces, New Mexico (right), setting a new world record for flight duration for its weight class. The airplane is designed to ultimately carry a 30-pound payload at 15,000 feet for up to 10 days without refueling. (Images: DARPA)
On Dec. 2, Vanilla Aircraft‘s VA001 unmanned aircraft system (UAS) completed a world record non-stop, unrefueled 56-hour flight.
The flight was supported by the technology innovation investments of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Rapid Reaction Technology Office (RRTO) and DARPA-funded efforts through Naval Air System Command (NAVAIR 4.11 – Patuxent River).
The VA001 10-day Endurance UAS.
The flight, planned as a 120-hour mission, was ended early because of forecasts of severe icing and range restrictions. However, the airplane landed with enough JP-8 fuel on board for an additional 90 hours of flying, or enough for a total of six days of flight.
The flight was certified as a world-duration record for combustion-powered unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the 50-500 kilogram subclass (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Class U-1.c Group 1). A representative from the National Aeronautic Association was present to witness the record. Moreover, the flight was the fourth-longest for any unmanned airplane and the 11th-longest for an airplane of any type (manned or unmanned, solar or fuel-powered).
Originating and ending at Las Cruces International Airport, the flight was conducted under the authority of the New Mexico State University UAS test site designated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
“This effort represents tremendous and unprecedented coordination among civil, defense, academic, and private industry to bring a heretofore only imagined capability to reality,” said Vanilla Aircraft CEO Rear Adm. Timothy Heely (ret.).
Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are an increasingly important means for military forces — especially small dismounted units — to bring extra communications or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities to the field. Current designs, however, offer relatively limited range and flight endurance; additionally, their need for frequent refueling, specialized launch and recovery equipment, and regular maintenance often limit them to flying from fixed bases close to the front lines.
“This record-breaking flight demonstrated the feasibility of designing a low-cost UAV able to take off from one side of a continent, fly to the other, perform its duties for a week, and come back — all on the same tank of fuel,” said Jean-Charles Ledé, DARPA program manager. “This capability would help extend the footprint of small units by providing scalable, persistent UAV-based communications and ISR coverage without forward basing, thereby reducing personnel and operating costs. We’re very pleased with what the Vanilla team has accomplished.”
Two VA001 UAVs by Vanilla Aircraft.
The airplane carried 20 pounds of actual and simulated payload, flying at 6,500 to 7,500 feet above mean sea level (MSL), and was a further step for the VA001 towards demonstrating the system’s objective performance of carrying a 30-pound payload for 10 days at an altitude of 15,000 feet.
The payload included a NAVAIR-provided relay and operated continuously throughout the flight to demonstrate functionality out to the maximum range.
The airplane also carried a NASA-provided multispectral imaging payload as a demonstration of Earth science and agricultural remote sensing.
“The VA001 has transformational potential, providing a scalable aerial system solution without increasing personnel or operating costs,” said co-founder and chief engineer Neil Boertlein. “The ability of a low-cost platform to provide persistent surveillance, battlefield pattern of life, or aerial mesh network relay, in a responsive and robust manner, and without forward basing, does not currently exist.”
Vanilla Aircraft is also planning a groundbreaking role for the VA001 in commercial applications, especially in agriculture. Vanilla is exploring strategic partnerships and equity financing to expand into this market.
“The VA001 would be a cost-effective option for widespread and regular low-level surveying,” said co-founder and program manager Jeremy Novara. “We could fill a wide cost and payload-capability market gap between small electric and large military unmanned aircraft, which is perfect for many commercial applications.”
The global anti-drone market size is anticipated to reach $1.85 billion by 2024, according to a new report by Grand View Research Inc.
The increase in the adoption of UAVs (drones) has resulted in the commencement of another market that focuses on a solution for rogue drones, complete with net-firing bazookas, electromagnetic shields and anti-drone death rays.
U.S. anti-drone market, by destructive mitigation type, 2014-2024 (USD million).
The steep rise in the adoption of drones for commercial as well as recreational purposes has increased concerns regarding aerials attack and threats. Detection and identification of these unmanned aircraft systems have become a vital factor for the maintenance of the security. Various institutions across the world are increasingly deploying counter drone measures to address the ever-growing need for safety and security.
As UAVs become deadlier, stealthier, faster, agile, smaller, sleeker and cheaper, the nuisance and threats posed by them are expected to grow at numerous levels, ranging from personal/domestic privacy to national security. With that in mind, there is significant effort both in terms of money and technology being invested in the development of anti-drone technologies.
Various national security agencies across the world have started to precisely understand the potential threats from drones and increasingly considering commercial as well as consumer drones as the new major threat to the world. It is only a matter of time before redundant and reliable methods of countering drones become mainstream and widely available.
Several busy airports and hubs across the world are seeking defense measures and regulations to protect their airliners and harbored aircraft from drones straying into commercial airspace and posing innumerable threats of a collision. The detection of a range of drone types is expected to require multiple modalities, data fusion systems to effectively identify and detect target drones amongst a cluttered background.
The full research report with a table of contents is titled “Anti-Drone Market Analysis By Mitigation Type (Destructive, Non-Destructive), By Defense Type (Detection & Disruption, Detection), By End-Use (Military & Defense, Commercial, Government), By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2014 – 2024.”
Ubiqomm has unveils its ubiquitous high-speed data connectivity solution, especially designed for enterprise drone fleets engaged in present line of sight (LOS) and, in the future, beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights.
“The application for drones is increasing exponentially as companies apply drone technology for surveying and performing emergency operations in remote locations, and other use cases including traffic monitoring in cities, and above stadium live-streaming of sporting events. Consistent high-speed data connectivity between drones and ground control centers is becoming mission critical,” said Saum Vahdat, VP of Marketing and Business Development at Ubiqomm.
Ubiqomm’s wireless solution encompasses a network of base stations on the ground and communications devices mounted on drones. Each base station is capable of supporting all drones within its 25km+ coverage radius. The seamless handoff with the adjacent base station ensures ubiquitous coverage in a large area while connecting drones to a cloud backhaul.
Ubiqomm’s unique patented solution uses multiple techniques, such as innovative antenna design for both base stations and drones, mobility management, and interference mitigation, together achieving very high bandwidth efficiency. Vahdat added “Dubbed as “Wi-Fi in the Sky,” Ubiqomm’s solution enables 10x lower CapEx and OpEx as compared to terrestrial LTE networks while enabling very high-data rates of 200 Mbps between drones and base stations.”
Ubiqomm is partnering with Skyriver, an affiliated company in the Bridgewest Group portfolio of businesses with expertise in wireless broadband network design and deployment, in the millimeter wave and lower spectrum bands. Together, the two companies are offering demonstrations to companies that are interested in leveraging Ubiqomm’s technology for their own products and services.
The demonstration includes multiple drones flying within a region approximately 25km away from their San Diego base station. Each drone will be transmitting multiple 1080p video streams to the base station, utilizing secure high-speed links (200+ Mbps).
Ubiqomm and Skyriver are seeking industry partners for development, testing and trials of UAV traffic management (UTM) protocols in addition to the “Wi-Fi in the Sky” network solution, paving the way for BVLOS flight operations.
This week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are conducting drone-detection research in the vicinity of Denver International Airport. The work is part of the FAA’s Pathfinder Program for UAS Detection at Airports and Critical Infrastructure.
The work in Denver is one of six technical evaluations scheduled over an 18-month period.
The State of Nevada and State of North Dakota UAS Test Sites conducted flight operations for the Denver evaluations. Industry partners involved in the Denver flights included CACI International, Liteye Systems and Sensofusion.
The FAA plans to capture the data and findings from the evaluations and draft recommendations for standards. These standards will guide the selection of drone-detection systems for airports nationwide.
Other evaluation sites include Atlantic City International Airport, JFK International Airport, Eglin Air Force Base, Helsinki Airport and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
In addition to DHS, the FAA’s federal research partners include the Department of Defense, FBI, Federal Communications Commission, Department of the Interior, Department of Energy, NASA, Department of Justice, Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Capitol Police.
The House Report accompanying the Fiscal Year 2016 federal appropriations law and the FAA Extension, Safety, and Security Act of 2016 both directed the FAA to continue research into detecting unmanned aircraft in airport environments.
DJI has updated the capabilities of its largest drone series by introducing the Matrice 600 Pro, which offers improved flight performance, a more powerful battery charging system and better loading capacity for industrial equipment, cinema cameras and other professional aerial applications.
The M600 Pro’s A3 Pro flight controller comes with triple modular redundancy and diagnostic algorithms that compare sensor data from three sets of GNSS units, which enhances precision control while improving overall safety. Vibration damping balls have been added to the flight controller’s redundant IMU module and main controller, absorbing more shake and reducing more noise.
The compatibility with D-RTK GNSS makes the A3 Pro withstand magnetic interference and provides centimeter-level accuracy, which makes it suitable for industrial applications.
“The M600 Pro is DJI’s most advanced platform for aerial cinematographers and commercial users. With its simple and easy setup system, triple redundancy and improved stability, the platform offers an unparalleled experience for professional users,” said Aaron Zhao, Senior Product Manager at DJI.
DJI’s E2000 Pro dust-proof propulsion system simplifies maintenance and its active cooling motors ensure that operation is reliable for extended periods of time.
The M600 Pro is compatible with DJI’s Zenmuse camera series, the Ronin-MX gimbal and DJI Focus. It supports a payload of 6 kilograms, meaning it can carry a range of cameras from Micro Four Thirds systems to the RED EPIC.
The M600 Pro has been optimized for transportation and comes with pre-installed arms and antennas. When folded, the platform is smaller than the standard M600. The M600 Pro comes with an updated battery charging hub, enabling users to charge the six intelligent batteries at the same time and thereby reducing overall charging time.
Soldier-borne sensors, leader-follower cargo-hauling technology and tiny, handheld unmanned aircraft are in the forefront of new technologies planned for U.S. warfighters, according to Maj. Gen. Robert M. “Bo” Dyess. The deputy director of the U.S. Army Capability Integration Center told AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems Defense keynote audience that developing tools and systems demanded by soldiers is key. He cited a recent demonstration exercise, in which soldiers responded enthusiastically to small, backpackable UAS that would let them see over the next hill or fence.
The Army is also developing autonomous ground systems including an unmanned combat vehicle, fully autonomous convoy operations and swarming unmanned aircraft. Autonomous weapons are seen as key in combatting both relatively low-tech guerilla and militia groups as well as high-tech “near-peer” combatants from organized industrial powers. A contested electromagnetic spectrum is emerging as a critical battlefield in the contemporary and future warscape, Dyess said. Cyberspace, racked by fundamental threats of spoofing, jamming and hacking, becomes the new killing ground.
Shad Reese, Tactical Warfare Systems, Unmanned Vehicles coordinator for the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense, said DoD is elaborating a new unmanned systems roadmap, which should be published in the first quarter of 2017. The roadmap will cover the period 2016-2041.
Reese said that a key aspect of the new roadmap is swarming technology, although at present there is little work underway in industry to support this. “Everyone and their mom is talking about swarming, but if you step back and look at what’s going on in industry, there are no real players in industry working on swarming.” Some work is underway in academia, but “we would like to have commercially available swarming technology.”
The Army’s squad mission support transport robot (SMET).
Army’s Ground Robots
The Army has put a robotic vehicle, the squad mission support transport robot (SMET), designed to carry heavy loads for troops, into an accelerated acquisition program. SMET is a 1,000-lb. tracked or wheeled platform carrying rucksacks, water or ammunition. A SMET version was recently tested in Afghanistan.
An Army spokesperson said the SMET has also been chosen as a pilot program a new way to do acquisitions that could shave time off development and fielding of new technologies, with industry involved from the start in specifications and requirements.
Swarms
Hordes of flying, thinking armed robots that autonomously coordinate amongst themselves, altering attack strategies in mid-mission and pushing through to strike targets kamikaze-style, are also seen as critical to future combat. The Air Force Research Laboratory calls the tactical weapons “distributed collaborative systems.”
Three drones work together to beam back information about an enemy’s location, and blocks their radar signals. (Image: DARPA)
The Air Force seeks to put “that next level of decision making and capability on the platform. Not only can it maintain itself, but it can work other parts of the team, whether those be airmen, or whether those be other machines to perform a mission task.”
Swarming micro-drones can be “really fast, really resistant. They can fly through heavy winds and be kicked out the back of a fighter jet moving at Mach 0.9, like they did during an operational exercise in Alaska last year, or they can be thrown into the air by a soldier in the middle of the Iraqi desert.”
“Swarming is a way to gain the effect of greater intelligence without each individual unit needing to be intelligent,” added one strategist. Last year Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, commander of the Air Force Material Command, called swarming drones “very much a game-changing reality for our Air Force in the future.”
One consultant added that a human operator may not be able to compete with a fully autonomous system that identifies, analyzes and geolocates a target, especially in such a scenario where the swarm is moving rapidly. “The power and the sheer speed of execution would give them a huge advantage over their adversaries.”
Kristen Kearns, autonomy portfolio lead at AFRL, said that a major challenge with any autonomous system is verifying and validating that the decisions it is making are correct. Trust, or “verification and validation,” becomes paramount with artificial intelligence, Kearns added. “How do we assure safe and effective operations when we put decision making in the platforms?”
Steve Walker, deputy director of DARPA, said his agency has been working on developing battle management systems with a blend of manned and unmanned vehicles. “You have humans and unmanned systems and you need data fused together quickly and things are happening fast and you don’t want to overload the human with all that information. … You want to give him or her exactly what he needs to make a decision and have all these distributed effects work together,” he said.
One official noted the presence of many YouTube videos demonstrating robots flying, sailing or moving in formation. “It’s a good illustration of how so much of the advancement in this space is happening outside the defense world.”
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Aeropoints are desgined for for companies across the industrial sector — including mining, construction, quarries and landfills.
Propeller Aero has introduced AeroPoints — smart ground-control points designed to make it easy to capture surveyaccurate mapping using drones.
The patent-pending technology provides a simple solution to a major roadblock to widespread commercial drone adoption: accuracy.
Typical ground control requires establishing precise geolocation position using surveying equipment, and then securing a visible ground marker exactly on the pre-marked GPS point.
AeroPoints are portable ground-control markers, visible from the air and capable of quickly capturing their own positions down to 2-centimeter absolute accuracy.
AeroPoints work with any camera or drone, and integrate seamlessly with Propeller’s cloud-based data platform and processing engine (see above story). They’re solar-powered, durable and weather resistant, and they don’t require any onsite connection.
To use AeroPoints, customers simply lay them down, fly their drone, and then pick them up again. They automatically connect to a wireless or mobile hotspot when back in range to upload captured positional data — and precision georeferencing is done.
The afternoon festival included races and demonstrations of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In a cage topped by a 100-meter-long net, drones competed in races, going as fast as 100 kilometers per hour as drone operators guided their UAVs through a brightly colored obstacle course.
The festival had an educational goal, reports phys.org, with displays on the regulations, the drone’s various uses, and workshops on piloting them.
The festival also was an occasion for the postal service to demonstrate its delivery drone, which weighs 3.7 kilos (eight pounds) and can carry three kilos of mail over 20 kilometers (12 miles).
Behind the security gates, 150,000 attended, and 30,000 watched the live stream.
Sharper Shape has submitted a waiver application to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), requesting approval to perform beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) flights.
In coordination with the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) and SkySkopes, a drone service provider in North Dakota, the waiver would allow members of the EEI-Sharper Shape partnership to demonstrate and develop commercial long-distance flights for electric company asset inspections.
In addition to submitting one of the first waiver requests, Sharper Shape and SkySkopes are working with Xcel Energy, Montana-Dakota Utilities Co., Minnkota Power Cooperative, Houston Engineering, Northern Plains Railroad, University of North Dakota and the Edison Electric Institute to conduct test flights.
BVLOS flights are able to travel 10–20 miles, compared to roughly 1,500 feet (one-third of a mile) under visual-line-of-sight regulations.
The test flights will leverage Sharper Shape’s new Sharper A6 drone and Sharperscope 5.0 payload. The Sharper A6 drone is optimized for BVLOS asset inspections, using four redundant cellular networks to make it virtually impossible for the drone to lose communication with ground-control operators, the company said.
The Sharper A6 from Sharper Shape.
Sharper Shape leverages the LTE commercial multi-billion-dollar networks, while other vendors use point-to-point (P2P), which cannot communicate beyond line of sight, or satellite connection, which suffers from high costs and invariable latency which increases the response time and impedes a pilot’s ability to make quick adjustments during the flight.
The A6 drone can collect a comprehensive variety of useful data (including information from its high-definition cameras, infrared sensors, corona detector, lidar sensor, etc.), and is to this day the only platform capable of doing so in a single flight. The sensors have been carefully selected and integrated into the Sharperscope 5.0, a system that Sharper Shape has engineered specifically for electric company BVLOS inspections and which syncs directly to the Sharper Shape cloud.
In conjunction with submitting the waiver application, SkySkopes and Sharper Shape kicked off a string of test flights including:
The first flight using the new Sharper A6 drone via a line-of-sight demonstration to inspect the Xcel Energy Bison Substation
A final flight with a fleet of drones to celebrate the day’s events.
“These test flights have contributed to a monumental day for the U.S. drone industry,” said SkySkopes President and CEO Matt Dunlevy. “We look forward to continuing to pioneer new developments for drone flights in the U.S. alongside Sharper Shape.”
Sharper Shape, EEI and SkySkopes are optimistic to test BVLOS flights in the U.S. by the end of the year.
Qualcomm Technologies Inc. and AT&T will test unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) on commercial 4G LTE networks.
The trials will analyze how UAS can operate safely and more securely on commercial 4G LTE and networks of the future, including 5G. The research will look at elements that would impact future drone operations.
CTIA Super Mobility 2016 attendees can catch a video demonstration at Qualcomm’s booth in the 5G Zone. Matt Grob will showcase the benefits of LTE-based drone operation during his keynote at 9 a.m. PDT on Sept. 8.
The team will look at coverage, signal strength and mobility across network cells and how they function in flight. The goal of the trials and ongoing research is to help enable future drone operations, such as beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), as regulations evolve to permit them.
The trials will begin later this month at Qualcomm Technologies’ San Diego Campus, with testing to take place at its FAA-authorized UAS Flight Center and test environment. The center contains real-world conditions including commercial, residential, uninhabited areas and FAA controlled airspace. The facility permits testing of the use of commercial cellular networks for drones without affecting AT&T’s everyday network operations.
In April, Qualcomm Technologies’ San Diego Campus received an FAA certificate of authorization to perform outdoor testing of drones.
The ability to fly beyond an operator’s visual range could enable successful delivery, remote inspection and exploration. Wireless technology can bring many advantages to drones such as ubiquitous coverage, high-speed mobile support, robust security, high reliability and quality of service (QoS), Qualcomm said in a press release.
“The trial with a carrier with the reach and technology of AT&T is a significant step in the development of connectivity technologies for small unmanned aircraft systems (SUAS), including optimization of LTE networks and advancement of 5G technology for drones,” said Matt Grob, executive vice president and chief technology officer, Qualcomm Technologies. “Not only do we aim to analyze wide-scalable LTE optimization for safe, legal commercial SUAS use cases with beyond line-of-sight connectivity, but the results can help inform positive developments in drone regulations and 5G specifications as they pertain to wide-scale deployment of numerous drone use cases.”
“Many of the anticipated benefits of drones, including delivery, inspections and search and rescue will require a highly secure and reliable connection,” said Chris Penrose, senior vice president, IoT Solutions, AT&T. “With a focus on both regulatory and commercial needs, LTE connectivity has the potential to deliver optimal flight plans, transmit flight clearances, track drone location and adjust flight routes in near real-time. Solving for the connectivity challenges of complex flight operations is an essential first step to enabling how drones will work in the future.”
The UAS trials will be based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon Flight drone development platform, which is designed to offer superior control and navigation capabilities. Already in use in some commercially available drones, the platform offers high fidelity sensor processing, precise localization, autonomous visual navigation and 4K videography all in an integrated, light-weight model suitable for consumers and enterprises.
