How Looser Federal Drone Regulations Could Help The Supply Chain Backlog The following is a guest post by Dan O’Toole, founder and CEO, DRONEDEK:  creators of a drone delivery mailbox.  DRONELIFE neither accepts nor makes payment for guest posts. The global supply chain backlog is at best an inconvenience for holiday shoppers and at worst has led to layoffs and/or manufacturing mayhem as microchips or other items critical to factory production are held hostage to delivery congestion. Package delivery by drone isn’t going to get the factory floors back to top efficiency, but it does promise long-term and lasting improvements to the environment and consumer convenience. Currently, the last-mile of the delivery chain – that distance between distribution hubs and consumers’ homes – is woefully inefficient and environmentally harmful. Anyone living in even a small city or town has seen this with their own eyes: Amazon, FedEx, USPS, DHL and UPS trucks circle city blocks repeatedly as human b...

San Diego-based SkySafe , an airspace security and management technology company, has announced a $30 million Series B investment to accelerate growth. The Series B investment led by Kingfisher Investment Advisors “with participation from new investors Gaingels , and MIT alumni investment fund Castor Ventures . Previous investor Andreessen Horowitz , who led the seed and Series A investments, also joined the round,” says a company press release. “To date, SkySafe has raised $45 million in total financing. The fresh capital will help further accelerate the company’s growth through strategic hiring, R&D, and expanded production of its airspace security system for commercial adoption.” Counter drone technology is based on a basic premise: detect, identify, and mitigate.  Over time, systems have gotten more sophisticated: but as legitimate commercial drone traffic increases, so does the need to differentiate between authorized and unauthorized drones. SkySafe’s airspace security techno...

Six months after unveiling its Maker eVTOL aircraft, Archer has achieved both FAA airworthiness certification and its first successful hover flight - The successful hover flight saw Maker accelerating off the ground and hovering in-place before returning to the ground safely - Maker aircraft is an autonomous two-seater eVTOL aircraft that has been certified for flight testing by the FAA - In the coming months, Archer’s flight test campaign will broaden to include hover envelope expansion, followed by transition envelope expansion Palo Alto, CA, December 20, 2021  – Archer Aviation Inc. (NYSE: ACHR) today announced that Maker, Archer’s eVTOL demonstrator aircraft, completed its first successful hover flight. The flight marks the completion of the company’s first full and complete systems test and validation of every hardware and software component working as intended to move the aircraft into the air.  The flight test was completed at 10.30am PT on 16 December and also resulted in the s...

Red Cat Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq:  RCAT ) (“Red Cat” or “Company”), a hardware-enabled software provider to the drone industry, reports its financial results for the fiscal quarter ended October 31, 2021 and provides a business update. Second Quarter 2022 Financial Highlights: - Revenues for the fiscal quarter ended October 31, 2021 were approximately $1.9 million, compared to approximately $428,000 for the same period in 2020, representing an increase of more than 300%   - Adjusted Net loss for the quarter ended October 31, 2021, which excludes non-cash expenses, primarily related to stock-based compensation, was approximately $3 million, as compared to an adjusted net loss of approximately $640,000 for the fiscal quarter ended October 31, 2020   - Cash and investments were approximately $60 million as of October 31, 2021 Recent Corporate Highlights: - Closed the acquisitions of Teal Drones   - Passage of Infrastructure Bill Should Benefit Drone Industry   - Teal Opens new Manufacturin...

The BUG PLUS features a dual vertical gimbal EO/TI camera with  5-inch blades  reducing the acoustic signature and  increasing performance  of the sub 250g platform. Open communications architecture  transforms the BUG PLUS into a network asset by integrating a  MANET system * on-board. The BUG PLUS can be further enhanced through the modular payload bay making it both an incredibly  effective ISR communications platform . *MANET system may increase BUG PLUS weight over 250g - One of the few UK manufacturers to have UAVs tested by 700X (TAA) - Only company in the UK to offer same controller and same ground-control system for entire UAVtek fleet   - Utilise open architecture principles & Defence Standards to integrate with wider Defence capabilities. - Integrated with TAK - Integrated with multiple radio bearers - Custom build experts – from concept to prototype fast.  - Able to offer many features competitors cannot. - Only nano drone in the world to fly for 38 mins - Only manufact...

Dronetag Mini Dronetag has released a low-power drone-tracking solution that can be attached to any drone, according to the company, to promote flight safety and compliance with new European regulations. The Dronetag Mini is based on Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF9160 with GNSS and Bluetooth, providing dual cellular IoT and Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity for reporting the exact position and identification of drones in flight. With the capability to monitor a fleet of drones, the Dronetag Mini can support a range of potential drone applications, for example, delivery services requiring multiple concurrent trips, or drone shows and drone fleets where multiple drones are sharing the same airspace at the same time. The nRF9160 is a compact, highly integrated system-in-package (SiP) that makes the latest low-power long-term evolution (LTE) technology and advanced processing and security accessible, and easy to use, for a wide range of single device low-power cellular IoT (cIoT) designs. A G...

Small drone without exposed rotor blades suited for use in tight, hazardous spaces By Jim Magill Looking like a micro-sized version of the Death Star , the Dronut X1, which Boston-based start-up Cleo Robotics released for commercial use earlier this month, is the first professional-grade bi-rotor ducted-fan drone – a drone without exposed rotor blades – built to conduct inspections in close-quartered and hazardous environments. Its unique design, featuring hidden propellers and rounded form, means the Dronut is collision-tolerant and can be operated near sensitive equipment, Cleo Robotics’ CEO and co-founder Omar Eleryan said in an interview. “The Dronut X1 is the first drone in the world that’s based on ducted-fan drone technology that performs as well as a quadcopter drone in terms of maneuverability, but exceeds the performance of quadcopters in terms of flight time and the ability to bump into things, especially in its current form factor,”  Eleryan said. Built from strong but lig...