drones

Leonardo's Falco Xplorer drone has completed its maiden flight. The largest Remotely-Piloted Air System (RPAS) built by the company, the Falco Xplorer S/N0001 spent 60 minutes flying over the Gulf of Trapani in a dedicated fly zone.

Although drones or other robotic devices could certainly help astronauts to explore other planets, controlling the things while wearing spacesuit gloves would be a challenge. It was with this in mind that the Astronaut Smart Glove was created.

Flash Forest combines the use of drones with specially-designed pods and an accelerated seed germination process. The technology is said to plant trees 10 times faster than a single worker and at a cost that's 80 percent cheaper than traditional tree planting methods.

Having introduced a massive heavy-lift drone at the end of October, Volocopter is now looking to show what the aircraft can do through a new partnership with John Deere, with the two developing a version customized for spraying crops.

We've watched with interest as subsequent developments have allowed RoboBee to fly, swim, hover, perch and lose its tether. Now it's become the first microrobot to achieve controlled flight using soft artificial muscles.

Scientists have used a drone to calculate the weight of live whales as they're swimming.

It looks like it was designed for the zombie-apocalypse, but the TF-19 Wasp from Ohio-based Throwflame is a serious piece of kit with potentially life-saving applications. From clearing critical infrastructure to pest management and forest fire back-burns, this modern-day dragon is nobody's toy.

A grid full of 10 giant coaxial octocopters, each with a pilot on board, racing each other head-to-head through the air at speeds up to 200 km/h (120 mph)? That's exactly what the Airspeeder racing series is set to introduce in 2020 with the aim of being a kind of Formula One for flying cars.

Spider-Man's "spidey-sense" isn't purely fiction – spiders have tiny, sensitive hairs on their legs that help them avoid predators or hunt prey. And now, engineers at Purdue University have developed similar sensors for autonomous cars or drones.

The smaller and lighter electronics get, the more ways they can be used. A team of researchers has come up with a compact radar system the size of a matchbox that could be deployed in drones and other gadgets where portability and low cost are important.

We've seen autonomous aircraft doing everything from spraying crops to surveying wildlife, and now the Swiss air rescue organization Rega has announced a drone that's capable of searching for and finding missing people all on its own.

Skypixel’s 2018 Aerial Storytelling Contest winners have just been revealed offering an incredible array of spectacular drone videos and photographs. The overall grand prize went to a truly stunning shot of French island monastery, Mont Saint Michel, shrouded in the wisps of an early morning fog.