US court upholds FAA drone regulations

The FAA just scored a legal win in its ongoing back and forth with drone hobbyists. The U.S. Court of Appeals opted to uphold a ruling granting the administration’s authority over consumer UAVs, a move that is expected to lead the way for additional restrictions on flight. The ruling is based, in part, on a 2012 law passed by Congress …

Amazon patents hijack-proof delivery drones

Amazon just received a patent for hijack-proof delivery drones. The company filed a patent titled “Hostile takeover avoidance of unmanned vehicles” two years ago, and it was finally approved last week. The patent is specifically designed for delivery vehicles, and its aimed at preventing “nefarious individuals” from taking over the company’s drones. Although there’s no guarantee that this patented technology will ever …

Snow in Danville, PA by Pinpoint Robotics

Snow ended on February 9th in Danville, Pennsylvania and I decided to take out the DJI Phantom 4 to grab a few shots. The temperatures were below 32 degrease Fahrenheit and the winds were pretty strong but the Phantom 4 performed very well. I did notice a reduction in battery life and the Phantom 4 was flying with a tilt in …

UAS tech: platforms, sensors, better data streaming and power management

Praetorian and DroneSense team up Pergam Technical Services Inc. released the first UAS sensor designed to detect and measure methane gas Panoptes Systems Corp. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has developed the eBumper4, a sensor system that keeps UAVs a safe distance away from objects Verizon Wireless and Florida-based Tayzu Robotics, a UAS manufacturer, are developing a site in the Cayman Islands …

Walkera’s methanol-fuelled range extender keeps a QR X900 hexacopter in the air for more than an hour

Hexacopter flight times over an hour should soon become possible. Chinese drone manufacturer Walkera has decided to go beyond the battery, teaming up with micro-generator producers at GenSmart to build a new hybrid powertrain for its QR X900 professional heavy lifter. A tiny, efficient methanol motor charges the battery during flight, allowing long flight times and instant refueling and it …

Fuel cell could let drones fly for hours without recharging

Last May, we heard about how Horizon Energy Systems was developing ahydrogen-powered quadcopter that could (hopefully) stay airborne for hours at a time. Soon, however, that drone may not be the only one doing so. That’s because Intelligent Energy has unveiled a fuel cell/battery range extender that could become standard equipment on third-party drones.