Drones

If one of the motors conks out on a quadcopter drone, the aircraft usually just crashes. Thanks to new research, however, such disabled drones could soon not only remain airborne, but even complete their trip.

Flying drones are already used to patrol outdoor areas, but indoors where GPS doesn't work? Not so much. That could be about to change, though, with the launch of the Tando system.

There are now a lot of fixed-wing drones on the market, and most of them look pretty similar. FLY-R's aircraft are different, though, in that they incorporate a rhomboidal wing design – it's claimed to offer some distinct advantages.

Sony's mirrorless Alpha series cameras have become hugely popular filmmaking tools, thanks in large part to the company's excellent sensors. At this year's CES, Sony announced it's starting up a drone business specifically to work with Alpha cameras.

Conventional dual-joystick drone controllers require pilots to use both hands – this can be inconvenient, plus not everyone has two functional hands. That's where the one-handed Knuckles-5 controller is designed to come in.

Although quadcopter drones may offer relatively good battery life, their hexa- and octocopter counterparts can lift heavier loads. The xFold drone can go either way, however, with extra propeller arms that can be attached or detached as needed.

Tiny quadcopter drones, or micro air vehicles (MAVs), have notoriously short battery lives. So, if they can "perch" somewhere instead of hovering in mid-air, more power to them. A new gripper mechanism has been designed with that in mind.

No matter how good we humans have made something, chances are nature did it better. Rather than compete, scientists have now tapped into a natural sensor with the Smellicopter, a drone that uses an antenna from a live moth to sniff out its targets.

A new understanding of the way bumblebees change their body orientation to squeeze through tight spaces has a team from Australia's University of New South Wales imagining how flying robots could be made to do the same thing.

Florida's Undefined Technologies claims it has managed to increase the thrust levels of ion propulsion systems to "unprecedented levels" with its "Air Tantrum" technology, enabling very quiet drones with no moving parts in the propulsion system, that look like flying pallets.

Spanish company Quaternium has destroyed its own record for gasoline-electric drone endurance with a 10-hour, 14-minute flight. But how does that stack up against hydrogen and batteries, and what are the implications for the emerging eVTOL market?

VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) drones are quite versatile, as they combine the vertical flight of a helicopter with the efficient forward flight of a fixed-wing airplane. This one features an extended range, thanks to a fuel cell power system.