UAS

The UAE's international Drones For Good competition seeks to emphasise the positive capabilities of drones and on Saturday, a team of Swiss technologists took out first prize with a vehicle that flies protected by a spinning cage, helping it to better travel through confined spaces.

Citing opportunities both technological and regulatory, Australian drone startup Flirtey has announced plans to expand overseas. So how does a business hinged on the speculative nature of delivery drones navigate such uncharted territory? We spoke with CEO Matt Sweeney on taking Flirtey global.

With the ability to patrol from the air, an application for drones with huge potential is wildlife conservation. AREND is an international team of students currently developing an unmanned aerial system, with the ultimate objective of combatting poaching in Africa's national parks.

Northrop Grumman and Yamaha are teaming up to develop a small, unmanned autonomous helicopter system. The Rotary-Bat (R-Bat) is aimed at a range of applications in both urban and rural areas, including search and rescue, power line inspection, border patrol and forest fire observation.

A solar-powered variant of AeroVironment’s hand-launched Puma AE small UAS has stayed in the air for a total of nine hours and 11 minutes, eclipsing the two-hour flight time of the standard battery-powered Puma AE and comparable competitor aircraft by a considerable margin.

Spain's ATLANTE Unmanned Aerial System made its maiden flight at the end of February.

Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Navy have demonstrated of a wireless, handheld device that will allow deck operators to remotely control the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) on a carrier deck.

Raytheon's Pyros small tactical munition intended for delivery via UAV has passed an end-to-end test with flying colors.

The flight time of the Stalker UAS has been improved by a whopping 2,400 percent using a laser power system to wirelessly transfer power to the UAS from the ground.

The Northrop Grumman-built X-47B has successfully completed the first major phase of flight testing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Northrop Grumman has announced that it will send a variant of the Global Hawk UAS into Arctic skies.

Aerovironment is examining the potential for its UAVs to rapidly re-establish communications when existing communications networks are knocked out following a natural or man-made disaster.