drones

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.

At low speed, it operates like a quadcopter, at high speed, it's a jet-propelled, highly efficient supersonic aircraft whose entire body acts as a low-drag wing. This Romanian flying saucer is claimed to offer unprecedented aerial agility across a broad range of speeds.

How much better could drones be if you got rid of fiddly hand controllers and flew them with your mind? That's the question EEGSmart asks with this quad, which responds to brainwaves and head movements instead of thumbsticks. It's not perfect, but it gives a glimpse of a mind-controlled future.

This fuel cell-powered coaxial octacopter just stayed aloft for 70 minutes of continuous flight, while carrying a 5kg (11-pound) weight. The record demonstrates the flight endurance capabilities of hydrogen-powered electric aircraft.

DJI’s controllers normally need a phone or tablet, but that can be a drain on your battery, fiddly to set up and hard to see in the bright light of day. At CES this week, the company has unveiled a new controller with its own display built in, designed for use in direct sunlight.

Toys today include robots, drones and AR, and if you’re lucky you can trick the kids into learning some useful skills along the way. New Atlas rounds up the best tech toys of 2018, which could make for some great last-minute gift ideas for the young’un in your life.

Our drones are pretty handy, but nature’s drones – bees – are far more efficient. Rather than building our own from scratch, researchers at the University of Washington have created tiny suites of sensors that bees can wear like backpacks, to help gather data from their environment.