Drone safety

DroneShield's newly announced DroneGun MkIII uses the same frequency-jamming tactics as the company's other offerings, but is designed to work in a tighter radius with one-handed operation for a quick and easy draw.

Adding to the growing mix of drone safety solutions is a new measure from industry giant DJI, who has committed to incorporating helicopter and airplane detectors into new models from next year onward.​

​Just as new uses for drones continue to surface (both good and bad), so too do ways to stop them in their tracks. Intended for authorities looking to control sensitive airspace, the DroneBullet takes a rather heavy-handed approach, knocking suspicious aircraft clean out of the sky.​

America's Federal Aviation Authority has put forth a set of proposed amendments to current drone laws that would allow drone users to fly over crowds and at night under certain circumstances, without needing to file paperwork and obtain exemptions.

​Another drone sighting has caused a temporary shutdown of a major UK airport today, with London’s Heathrow halting departures for several hours as investigations commenced following a suspicious unmanned aircraft in the vicinity.

​​Like many emerging technologies, drones are packed with promise but their capabilities can readily be harnessed by folks with mal-intent. This reality has played out at London’s Gatwick airport today where drones have been sighted hovering over the airfield. So what are the authorities to do?

​​Austrian company Drone Rescue will demonstrate new parachutes for multicopter drones to bring them down to Earth safely should they hit trouble. As well as seeing the drone safely down, it's hoped the chutes will prevent people being hurt as drones become more widespread.​

​​For tall their potential, the utility of non-military drones as a weapon of war and terror is an unfortunate byproduct of their proliferation. This reality has played out in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas over the weekend.

​If there's one thing that's scary about quadcopter drones – besides their ability to invade peoples' privacy or fall on their heads – it's those fast-spinning rotor blades. An experimental new system, however, is designed to stop the rotors before they can do any cutting.

​When Canadian engineers Omar Eleryan and Simon Czarnota first tried flying a regular drone, they were put off by how big, loud, hard to control and potentially dangerous it was. That prompted them to form Cleo Robotics, and develop the donut-shaped Cleo drone.

​Many of the applications for drones will see them fly high up in open airspace, but safely moving through denser urban areas at street level would be a handy capability, too. Researchers have come up with a control system for drones that enables them to autonomously navigate these busier settings

As consumer drones have become more commonplace, so too have concerns that owners might use them for snooping. Researchers have now developed a way to uncover such activity, coming up with a way to intercept a drone's radio signals and tell whether it's been filming things that it shouldn't.