Earlier this week, the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky told reporters that he wants the city to field a fleet of drones that automatically survey areas after guns are fired. The city would detect firearm discharges using its existing ShotSpotter system...
DJI is supposed to be unveiling a new drone on January 23rd, but the cat might already be out of the bag. Kanzhaji has posted photos and details of the Mavic Air, a foldable drone that would reportedly slot neatly between the diminutive Spark and the...
It was a week of firsts for the tech industry. Facebook finally got around to adding its first African American board member (because it's not like it's already 2018 or anything), a lifeguard drone made its first Hasselhoffian beach rescue, Ferrari a...
The Lockheed Martin SR-71 Blackbird is one of the most recognizable aircraft designs in history. Few other planes have captured the public's attention and imagination in quite the same way as the SR-71 has since it was declassified in 1990 (nearly 30...
Fathers and sons do it, people do it in the park with their dogs, and Baseball players do it professionally, so why not let the robots get in on a fun game of catch? They want in on this human pastime too. And guess what? They are doing it. The Omnicopter drone is pretty good at it. It won’t be long before robots everywhere are tossing the ball to one another and forming their own Baseball teams.
It’s happening thanks to Swiss mechanical engineer Dario Brescianini and ETH Zurich professor Raffaello D’Andrea, who worked together to create this unique aerial vehicle. This drone is a super agile omni-directional drone that can fly in any direction, at any time, meaning it can change flight vectors much faster and more reliably than traditional quadcopters. That tech is the key to its success at this game. The drone is able to play a game of catch by adding a “computationally efficient trajectory generator.” So basically, it’s able to watch where the ball is being thrown, rapidly calculate its flight path, and make its way to where the ball will be in time to catch it.
The Omnicopter never fails to catch the ball, and never drops it. It is the perfect outfielder since it knows where the ball will be ahead of time. Sure, it’s impressive, but talk to me when it can swing a bat and hit a home run. We will probably see that next week.
If you're hoping for a DJI drone this Christmas, be prepared for one teeny-tiny roadblock as you rush into the back garden with controller in hand. Today, the company has announced a mandatory "Knowledge Quiz" for all of its customers in the UK. It w...
The US military has used drones in combat zones for over a decade to scout and support infantry. Now they're testing a way to give ground troops another edge: The capability to build UAVs themselves. What's more, the US Army is partnering with the Ma...
This morning, Chinese drone company DJI demonstrated its new AeroScope device that can track UAVs in a 5-kilometer radius. At the moment, it can only monitor the company's drones, but it's a potentially potent tool for law enforcement (or other DJI-a...
Sure, they were a hot commodity when they first dropped, but almost a year later and Snapchat has "hundreds of thousands" of pairs of Spectacles sitting in Chinese warehouses. The news, via The Information, comes after CEO Evan Spiegel boasted that s...
Consumer drones have more or less conquered hovering, but are there easier ways to stay in place? Researchers from Imperial College London have a possible answer: The SpiderMAV, a UAV that shoots ropes that magnetically cling to surfaces to anchor it...
Earlier this week, the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky told reporters that he wants the city to field a fleet of drones that automatically survey areas after guns are fired. The city would detect firearm discharges using its existing ShotSpotter system...
DJI is supposed to be unveiling a new drone on January 23rd, but the cat might already be out of the bag. Kanzhaji has posted photos and details of the Mavic Air, a foldable drone that would reportedly slot neatly between the diminutive Spark and the...
It was a week of firsts for the tech industry. Facebook finally got around to adding its first African American board member (because it's not like it's already 2018 or anything), a lifeguard drone made its first Hasselhoffian beach rescue, Ferrari a...
The Lockheed Martin SR-71 Blackbird is one of the most recognizable aircraft designs in history. Few other planes have captured the public's attention and imagination in quite the same way as the SR-71 has since it was declassified in 1990 (nearly 30...
If you're hoping for a DJI drone this Christmas, be prepared for one teeny-tiny roadblock as you rush into the back garden with controller in hand. Today, the company has announced a mandatory "Knowledge Quiz" for all of its customers in the UK. It w...
The US military has used drones in combat zones for over a decade to scout and support infantry. Now they're testing a way to give ground troops another edge: The capability to build UAVs themselves. What's more, the US Army is partnering with the Ma...
This morning, Chinese drone company DJI demonstrated its new AeroScope device that can track UAVs in a 5-kilometer radius. At the moment, it can only monitor the company's drones, but it's a potentially potent tool for law enforcement (or other DJI-a...
Sure, they were a hot commodity when they first dropped, but almost a year later and Snapchat has "hundreds of thousands" of pairs of Spectacles sitting in Chinese warehouses. The news, via The Information, comes after CEO Evan Spiegel boasted that s...
Consumer drones have more or less conquered hovering, but are there easier ways to stay in place? Researchers from Imperial College London have a possible answer: The SpiderMAV, a UAV that shoots ropes that magnetically cling to surfaces to anchor it...