25 Jun

Posted at 20:08h in Scoop.it

I recently spent a week flying the DJI Phantom 2 Vision quadcopter. It’s a 2.5 pound drone with an attached camera and easy flight controls, and I loved it.

 

But I also had repeat unsettling occurrences while flying the drone. The first was, of course, the crashes. I hit a car. I botched a landing and slammed down on a stranger’s roof. But more unsettling was the accidental footage and pictures I caught of the inside of people’s apartments.

 

The experience taught me that a camera attached to a flying machine could have a bigger impact than we all imagine on the way we live.

 

When they hear the word “drone,” most people think of the bomb-dropping variety. Those aren’t landing in consumer hands anytime soon.

 

Personal drones are smaller, lighter and are most likely carrying a camera. But when an accident occurs and one is dropped from several hundred feet in the air, they can still be dangerous.

 

In late September, a man flew a Phantom over New York City for about three minutes before a collision with a building caused it to crash several feet in front of a pedestrian. It’s beautiful footage, but the pilot repeatedly bounces the aircraft off of buildings, creating a series of dangerous situations.

 

Click headline to read more and watch the video clips-

Source: gigaom.com

25 Jun

Posted at 20:07h in Scoop.it

Flying robots have proven themselves capable sheep herders, delivery boys, filmmakers and spies. Now, when can we have one?

 

Herding sheep, delivering pizza, guiding lost students around campus — these are just a few things friendly drones can do. Company and DIY drones are on the rise, and not even Hollywood stars will be safe from them. Soon starlets might be acting in front of drone-mounted cameras or being chased by a UAV paparazzi.

 

Though drones have incredible commercial potential, most countries restrict its use. The U.S. is expected to open up drones for commercial use by 2015. 

Proponents are eager to point out the many ways they’re going to make our lives better. “Really, this technology is an extra tool to help an industry be more effective,” says Gretchen West, the executive vice president for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI).  AUVSI estimates the U.S. loses $10 billion yearly by delaying drone integration. Though drones bring up privacy concerns, some argue it could advance privacy law.

“With precision agriculture, for example, it can take pictures of fields so farmers can identify problems they wouldn’t necessarily see walking through the fields. In law enforcement, you could find a child lost in the woods more easily than walking through a field, particularly if there’s bad weather or treacherous ground.”

While it may seem that drones are set to take over our lives, the reality is a bit more complicated. Drone usage around the world is definitely picking up in the public sector, but when it comes to commercial activity, many countries have strict limitations.

The United States doesn’t allow for commercial drone usage at all, though that’s expected to change in 2015, when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) aims to put a plan in place to integrate drones in U.S. airspace. In the meantime, says West, the U.S. is losing $10 billioons in potential economic impact for every year the FAA delays.

 

“I think the U.S. has been the leader in this technology, and I think there’s a risk of losing that first-mover aspect the longer we wait on regulations,” she says.

Source: edition.cnn.com

25 Jun

Posted at 20:04h in Scoop.it

Very interesting…I had a feeling this was coming next, especially since they reported that DHS was now involved in the manhunt. Today they announced at the LAPD Press Conference at 1pm PST that Christopher Dorner is now considered a ”domestic terrorist”. So now they are bringing out the drones…how soon before they use one to shoot at him? While I believe we must capture him dead or alive, I don’t think they should be using drones without a search warrant against his property. However, I guess public land is considered ”public” therefore we are subject to search without a warrant?

 

Source: patdollard.com

25 Jun

Posted at 20:02h in Scoop.it

New advances in 3D printing are making it not only possible but also viable to manufacture cheap, print-on-demand, disposable drones designed simply to soar off over the horizon and never come back. Some British engineers did just that, and this is only the beginning. The team hails from the Advanced Manufacturing Research Center (AMRC) at the University of Sheffield, where they’re exploring innovative ways to 3D-print complex designs. They built their disposable drone, a five-foot-wide guy made of just nine parts that looks like a tiny stealth bomber, using a technique called fused deposition modeling. This additive manufacturing technique has been around since the 1980s but has recently become faster and cheaper thanks to improved design processes.

The ultimate vision, as sUAS describes it, is for “cheap and potentially disposable UAVs that could be built and deployed in remote situations potentially within as little as 24 hours.” Forward-operating teams equipped with 3D printers could thus generate their own semi-autonomous micro air force squadrons or airborne surveillance swarms, a kind of first-strike desktop printing team hurling disposable drones into the sky.

For now, the AMRC team’s drone works well as a glider, and they’re working on a twin ducted fan propulsion system. It will eventually get an autonomous operation system powered by GPS as well as on-board data logging of flight parameters. Presumably, someone will want to stick a camera on there, too. If they’re successful at building these things cheaply enough, it will be a green flag for the rest of the industry to take a hard look at their designs and see if they can make a disposable drone, too.

Source: www.amrc.co.uk