Drone News & Articles

EHang, one of the world’s leading companies promoting swiftly approaching air taxi activities, has flown a test flight of its 216 electric takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft in Bali during a simulated sightseeing excursion.

The company produced a video of the 216 eVTOL making a five-minute autonomous flight from Bali’s scenic Villa Blackstone Beach over both land and sea areas. Indonesia’s first demonstration of an advanced aerial vehicle (AAV) was sponsored by the aviation affiliate of the local Prestige Corp., which is thought to be considering EHang and other manufacturer’s vehicles for use as rapid air taxi services and longer, more leisurely sightseeing trips.

In its communiqué on the unprecedented test flight of an eVTOL vehicle in the country, EHang noted it followed the issuing of a special certificate of air worthiness by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation of the Republic of Indonesia. From that wording, it would appear the craft still needs to pass full certification for marketing and operation in the country in the future, despite its successful autonomous sightseeing jaunt.

EHang’s eVTOL test in Bali comes amid a flurry of activity by sector companies vying for what is expected to be big business across Asia once air taxi and other AAV services are approved and introduced.

EHang conducted its first flights in South Korea nearly a year ago, and just this month saw German rival Volocopter replicate those with demonstration runs at both Seoul airports. Those come amid increasing efforts by South Korean officials to accelerate preparations for looming air taxi services, which they hope may alleviate the country’s serious road traffic congestion. 

Both Volocopter and EHang have similarly been busy with AAV trials and discussions with authorities in European countries. Those include France – which plans to introduce air taxi service for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics – and Spain, where authorities are also considering the use of next-generation eVTOL craft for police and other official operations.

As elsewhere in Asia, Indonesia is looking to various kinds of AAV alternatives to alleviate clogged roads to improve lives for locals, and further stimulate the nation’s booming international and domestic tourism trade.

“Prestige Aviation aspires to be the pioneer to provide smart city innovations with digital-based transport implementation,” said Prestige Corp executive chairman Rudy Salim. “As an AAV, EHang 216 can become an effective, affordable mobility and efficient solution for Indonesian air mobility.”

For their part, EHang officials described the Bali eVTOL demonstration as a positive step for the group’s activity in Indonesia, and across the region as well. 

“The successful flight demo fully showcased EHang 216’s potential for efficient island hopping and air transportation,” said Hu Huazhi, EHang founder and CEO. ”We are pleased to join hands with Indonesian local partners to bring our leading AAVs and UAM solutions to Indonesia, one of the most promising UAM markets in Southeast Asia. Our global network of renowned and reliable partners continues to expand, and we believe this is a significant step for our sustainable, consistent success.” 

Written by Bruce Crumley | 30 Nov 2021

DJI fans who held off jumping at the initial Mavic 3 packages in the hopes of getting more variety or value in later iterations may be rewarded – soon enough, anyway. Today the company announced it’s rolling out a Mavic 3 Fly More Combo that includes the DJI RC Pro controller.

Announced in the form of a thank you note to customers on its DJI Forum, the company said it had heard and duly noted user disappointment in having to purchase the RC Pro controller separately from the various Mavic 3 packages initially offered. As a result, DJI says it will be including the pro-grade controller as part of bundles it will start selling in China on December 20. It will then expand the availability of that package to North America and some European markets in the first quarter of next year if demand warrants it.

“Thank you for your great support towards the launch of the Mavic 3 series,” the post began. “We heard you and learnt that a lot of you loved to try the new DJI RC Pro but had to make the purchase separately. In order to improve user experience, we decided to introduce a new DJI Mavic 3 Fly More Combo with the DJI RC Pro.”

Possibly anticipating the groans – if not perhaps even more unhappy sounds – coming from people who’d already bought the Mavic 3 with extant controllers, DJI says it will take steps to make things right and keep all clients happy regardless of the timing of their buying impulses.

“We understand that customers in some regions have purchased the DJI RC Pro separately before this new combo is introduced,” DJI noted. “We will compensate these customers with DJI credit and coupons later. For more details of the program, please pay attention to our official communication channels.”

It’s understandable why DJI fans would want to be able to pair the Mavic 3 craft with the top-of-the-line RC Pro. The unit is equipped with a next-generation processor, O3+ video transmission technology, and 4G network communication capabilities. Why fly a cutting-edge, flagship DJI Mavic 3 with a good but not equally powerful controller?

Given what DJI plans to pack into the new bundle, it’s also understandable that users who’ve waited to take the Mavic 3 dive till now may rush to take the plunge when the new packs come their way.

The new DJI Mavic 3 Fly More Combo (DJI RC Pro) includes a Mavic 3 drone, 3 Intelligent Flight Batteries, 1 DJI RC Pro, 1 Battery Charger, 1 Battery Charging Hub, 1 Storage Cover, 6 pairs of Propellers, 1 Set of ND Filters (ND4\8\16\32), 1 Convertible Carrying Bag, and other essential items.

In markets where Mavic 3 craft are available, buyers will have the choice between Mavic 3 Standard, DJI Mavic 3 Fly More Combo, and DJI Mavic 3 Cine Premium Combo, and the yet to be priced DJI Mavic 3 Fly More Combo (DJI RC Pro) options. 

The government of Australia’s Victoria state says it is testing high-resolution sensors, artificial intelligence, and drones as part of what it’s calling a “regional road maintenance blitz” to renovate its aging ground transport network.

As clement weather returns with the nearing of the country’s summer season, officials in Victoria are mounting a drive to repair the state road system that has shown strains of time and wear. Most of that network was built in the wake of World War II. In addition to aging, surfaces have also been weakened by increasingly frequent episodes of extreme weather. In response, Victoria is equipping both official cars and drones with high-resolution cameras and artificial intelligence tech to collect data and imagery across its roads, and find out where problems exist and which among those need quickest reparation.

“The regional maintenance blitz is currently delivering more than 1,000 individual projects across Victoria’s regional network, rebuilding, repairing, and resurfacing more than 1,400 kilometers of some of our busiest roads,” a communique by Victoria’s Department of Transport stated. 

The condition of the ground system has been a topic of growing complaint across the state. Earlier this year a Victoria couple was nearly killed after losing control of their car when the trailer it was towing hit a huge pothole – one of several incidents that provoked the rising demand for full-scale road repair.

The heaviest lifting – and widest roaming – in the government’s new remedial effort has thus far been fallen to camera and AI-equipped cars, which can collect vast arrays of data over broad areas while traveling at the same speed as surrounding traffic. 

More recently, however, funds of over $143,000 have been allocated to loading that tech onto drones for trial inspection of Victoria’s roadways, particularly in places where access may be difficult or dangerous – like bridges – or where density of traffic makes longer and more complete scans from the air safer and more efficient.

“The high-definition images captured by the drones depict even the most minute details, such as hairline cracks, and remove the need for staff to use boats or work at heights to carry out these inspections,” the communique notes. “The drones have also been used in recent emergencies, giving engineers a bird’s-eye view of the damage caused by storms and bushfires, assisting with planning for clean-up and repair works.”

Investment in drones will doubtless rise after current testing in the city of Ballarat, northwest of Melbourne, advances – likely coming from the nearly $217 million Victoria has already allotted to repairing and maintaining its total 19,000 kilometers of roadways. Given the ability of drones to collect data in tricky spots or dangerously heavy traffic areas that humans used to visually check, using the craft should prove safer, faster, more effective, and cheaper than manual methods. 

“In terms of the drones, it means we’re not putting our staff in unsafe locations on positions, and we can make sure they’re safe and getting home to their families,” Grampian regional roads director Michael Bailey told ABC.net. “The software itself saves us about ($181 million) and three years’ worth of work.”

Written by Bruce Crumley | 23 Nov 2021

Officials in the state of Western Australia are preparing what is becoming an annual deployment of drones to help farmers of wheat in one of the nation’s richest agricultural regions battle the nutrient-sucking plague of skeleton weed.

Though still nominally in the research phase, the use of sensor-equipped drones to identify and map skeleton weed across Western Australia’s so-called Grainbelt proved successful enough last year to replicate again this growing season. The campaign is overseen by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) in partnership with local actors. It will cover nearly 99,000 hectares in an attempt to locate skeleton weed (Chondrilla juncea) – an officially designated “pest plant” that’s particularly effective in consuming nourishing nitrogen and soil moisture that nearby crops need.

“The drones are installed with digital imaging technology to accurately and confidently capture, record, and map the presence of skeleton weed to aid eradication strategies and treatments,” says DPIRD project manager Martin Atwell, who notes early identification will allow for more effective action as Australia’s summer progresses. “Harvest is the best time to observe the weed, providing an opportunity for early detection and making eradication more feasible.”

This year’s drone-led battle against skeleton weed will focus on 54,000 acres of the overall zone involved, and 200 specific farming properties. In addition to identifying places where the invasive pest is already growing, aerial maps created from the missions will give agricultural officials a better idea of nearby land it’s likely to spread to. 

Testing of UAVs for a variety of agricultural missions began about five years back. The increasing sophistication of onboard tech – and better understanding of how that can be used by authorities – confirmed the promise of the aerial approach, especially in the case of drone deployment against skeleton weed.

“The cutting-edge research is combining image analysis with machine learning to detect skeleton weed plants, to determine if new plants are coming from old crowns or dormant rootstocks or seedlings,” explains DPIRD senior research scientist John Moore. “The same technology is also being used to determine the effect of skeleton weed treatments on crop growth.”

In very general terms, the approach is similar to the use of drones by researchers on the other side of Australia to conduct a population count of koala bears, whose populations were decreased by recent wildfires. While that involves onboard artificial intelligence and facial recognition sensors to identify and record individual koalas, the task of spotting any kind of skeleton weed in Western Australia is somewhat easier.

“Skeleton weed has upright and usually leafless stems which gives the appearance of the skeleton of a plant,” says Atwell, adding that in addition to chemical means of eradication, the DPIRD is also examining use of microwave radiation to defeat the botanical pest.

Written by Bruce Crumley | 22 Nov 2021

A Scottish drone pilot got more than he expected during a coastal flight on Halloween, when his craft videoed a mysteriously boiling area of sea water resembling a giant witches’ cauldron.

Drone enthusiast Paul Young caught the eerie sea phenomenon on video while taking advantage of calm weather Sunday along the coast of South Ayrshire in southeast Scotland. When he first spotted the bubbling, swirling froth of water about a mile off shore, Young said he thought it might be a whirlpool, or convergence of exceptionally strong riptides. But when he got the UAV back home and took a closer look at the footage, the 46-year-old accountant realized it was something else altogether – though what remained a mystery.

“I spotted the anomaly on the water when flying my drone close by, so I diverted it over for a closer look,” Young told the Daily Record. “When I got home and looked at (the footage) I realized there was a large dark patch round where the water was bubbling and got a bit concerned. I posted onto a couple of groups and people came back with various ideas as to what it could be.”

Given the day, and swiftly approaching twilight of the late afternoon flight, it was too tempting for some to resist speculating the event had been some bewitching demonstration of supernatural beings celebrating Halloween in their own weird way. Being far less fanciful of mind – and concerned about what might have been behind the roiling water so close to an onshore landfill – Taylor began calling around for information about what his drone video picked up in the sea.

It turned out the cause was less enchanting than witches or marine ghosts having a bit of fun. Young’s alert to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency soon provided matter-of-fact explanation for the boiling seas.

“This is a routine permitted discharge of treated landfill leachate from Straid Farm Landfill,” an agency spokesperson was quoted explaining in media reports. “Leachate is rainwater which has come in to contact with waste within a landfill. It is collected within lined containment cells and then treated prior to discharge to the environment… to ensure no adverse impact on the receiving water body.” 

Written by Bruce Crumley | 2 Nov 2021 

FPV drone wizard Jay Christensen is back with another adrenalin rush of a video. This time, he took his drone and goggles to a Minnesota amusement park to roll with the roller coasters.

Fans of Jay’s work will always remember his famous Bryant Lake Bowl video that almost redefined what an FPV drone could do – and he did it in one take. This time, he’s flown the Valleyfield amusement park in Shakopee, Minnesota. Just before it closed for the season, he zipped around the 125-acre site for a speedy view of some of its eight roller coasters.

In the two-and-a-half-minute video, Christensen flies over the coasters, nearly soaks his drone in the spray of the log flume, and hesitates with the other thrill-seekers at the top of a sudden-drop ride.

It’s unlikely this video will get the more than 2 million views his Bryant Lake Bowl received, but it’s not like he’s lost any of his skill. He told KARE TV it took only a few practice runs to nail the bowling alley shoot.

FPV drone wizard Jay Christensen is back

“We probably did 10 takes with the camera running,” Christensen says. “The first few, the timing was way off and we would get to a certain part and the bowler wouldn’t be there, or maybe the drone was a little out of position, so it was cool to see, halfway through the process, how we had to kind of re-structure everything.”

As the pilot for JayByrdFilms, Christensen has also scored big props for his work on a tour through the historic Glensheen mansion.

Written by David MacQuarrie | 2 Nov 2021

The Italian town of Positano, which hugs the cliffs along Italy’s scenic Amalfi Coast, is a delight for tourists and fashion lovers, and a nightmare for mapmakers.

The city’s topography, with streets that wind along the hills and canyons that run right up the shore of the sea, presents an impossible challenge for mapmakers using traditional methods. That’s why French drone company Parrot chose Positano as the perfect place to test out the mapping capabilities of its ANAFI AI software.

The French drone company recently teamed with Logiroad, a French software company with expertise in creating digital twins of cities, to create a 3D model of the picturesque but hard-to-map city.

“We’ve been working on the ANAFI AI project for literally years. We asked ourselves: what would be the craziest thing that we could try to map with a drone?” Olivier Revon, Parrot product leader and photogrammetry expert, said in an interview.

Erwan Renaudin, director of mobile mapping and drone solutions for Logiroad, said that when he heard about the project to create a 3D model of Positano he thought it would be a tremendous technological challenge. “With traditional surveying and mobile mapping techniques, it would have been impossible to do the cartography,” he said.

In fact, the “impossible” mission to capture the photogrammetric images used to build the digital twin of Positano was completed in three days. Using the Parrot ANAFI Ai software, the team gathered 4,800 photos at 48 MP resolution. That translated to about 75 GB of data, enough to create the huge 3D model consisting of 800 million triangles.

“With traditional meters we wouldn’t have been able to fulfill that project to the end, because you would have needed to go to down every street, every corner, to make the surveys and scan the data,” Renaudin said.

Likewise, he said it wouldn’t have been possible to conduct an aerial survey over Positano with an airplane using traditional photogrammetric meters, which lack the resolution capability of the Parrot sensors. Those sensors can achieve a ground-sample distance measurement of 2 centimeters over 100 acres. “So, the UAV was a perfect solution, especially with this one and the extreme capability of its sensor,” Renaudin said.

Using Parrot’s ANAFI AI and FreeFlight software, the team to was able to set up the intricate flight patterns and to capture images of every street and building in city.

“What’s beautiful with Anafi AI is you no longer have to go outside of the application to set up your flight mission. You can do everything in one app,” Revon said. “You just have to select what you need, a simple or double grid, or even a circular mission and you just click the start button and the drone just takes off.”

The wealth of high-quality visual data collected by the Parrot drone systems created a new set of challenges for the team, in assembling the data into a 3D model. A digital point cloud representing the city contained about 1 billion points. Because the volume of data was so dense, Logiroad has to switch from one suite of software, designed to assemble the photo images, to another, which was more precise.

“We were going through the problem you have in movies. How do you to edit that, how do you show the model after processing it?” Renaudin said. “We had to switch our techniques of mapping to what they’re using in the gaming industry. It was very interesting, even if we had more gray hair than before.”

Despite European aviation regulations that required that a pilot must monitor the drone flights over the town at all times, the flights themselves were mostly autonomous, Revon said. About 90% of the flight operation was made with the FreeFlight software, with the pilots on hand to simply start the mission, ensure that the flight was proceeding properly, ending the mission and downloading the data, Revon said.

Although the Positano project did not require flying beyond visual line of sight, Revon said drones equipped with the ANAFI AI system also are capable of completing mapping projects that require BVLOS flights over long distances.

In test flights over open country in Iceland, a Parrot drone completed 32 kilometers of BVLOS flight between two points. Designed primarily for large-scale mapping, the software can allow the operator of the mission to be sited miles away from the drone’s flight path.

“Imagine the someone is pushing a button in the US and the drone will fly in the UK,” he said. “Given the fact that Anafi AI has a 4G connection, this that is something it’s capable of doing.”

Written by Miriam McNabb | 3 Nov 2021

A long, long time ago, 

In a galaxy far away...

w h i r r r r r 

Credits to u/Nightstalker1993 on Reddit 

DJI is on the cusp of launching the highly anticipated Mavic 3 prosumer drone with astounding flight time and an upgraded camera system. If you’re in the market for a drone for yourself or someone you know for the holidays, should the upcoming announcement affect your shopping decision?

The short answer is absolutely – if your interest and budget already fit the bill for DJI’s top-of-the-line consumer drones. DJI Mavic 3 is raising the ceiling for how good a mainstream drone can be without getting into ultra professional and pricier machines.

The Mavic 3 will be packing both a wide-angle and telephoto camera system capable of shooting 5.2K video and 20MP images. With an expected starting price of $1,599, Mavic 3 is expected to offer camera sophistication that tramples specs on comparably priced hardware from a few years ago.

If you can nab a Mavic 3 in time for the holidays, you can expect DJI’s latest drone to age wonderfully over the next several years. Personally, I think I would prefer to unbox an order form for a Mavic 3 shipping after the holidays versus a comparable drone on the market today. Compare what we know about the Mavic 3 to the Mavic 2 Pro to help inform your decision.

We’ll have to wait and see what launch availability is like in a few weeks when DJI makes the Mavic 3 official, but we can already predict that it will be a hot item for Q4.

If your drone budget is nowhere near the retail price for the upcoming Mavic 3, however, your effort is better spent on learning about the best sub-$1,000 drones on the market. As ever, shopping sooner than later is highly recommended if you want the most options without missing the holidays.

Written by Zac Hall | 15 Oct 2021

Between the Dixie, Caldor, McCash, and Windy fires, Northern California has been witnessing a busy wildfire season. And this time, the firefighters on the ground are being shadowed by a crew from NASA. Their aim? To watch and learn how drones help to battle the blazes from above.

NASA’s Joey Mercer and his teammates are designing software and communication tools to help first responders work more safely and efficiently. One of the things being considered as part of the Scalable Traffic Management for Emergency Response Operations (STEReO) project is how the use of drones can be scaled up.

Drones capture heat signature of wildfires

Since thermal imagery obtained by drones can help determine where fire-containment lines should be established, the STEReO team wants to make aerial firefighting as useful as possible. Mercer explains:

The smarter we are about their operations, the smarter capabilities we can create. [Firefighters] are running operations at night. They don’t know what terrain they’ll encounter, or where they can launch their aircraft from. There are so many details about their working environment that are hard to capture in conversation or get lost in translation.

This is precisely why the crew from NASA decided to join wildland firefighters in the very real-world setting of active wildfires. In August and September, they shadowed drone pilots and incident commanders from three different agencies, gleaning behind-the-scenes information from members of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), the US Forest Service, and the National Park Service.

The NASA team witnessed how drones were sent to look for traces of fire down a steep gully – the thermal data collected by the craft proving critical to decide whether firefighters could safely attempt to hold the fire there, or if they should work from the next ridgeline, even if it meant losing more acres to the flames. Mercer tells:

It really speaks to how critical information is in their decision-making, and the timing of when that information becomes available to the various decision-makers has a huge impact on the overall operation.

Keeping drone pilots updated on location of crewed aircraft

One of the challenges the STEReO team is trying to solve is tracking the location of nearby crewed aircraft and communicating the same to drone operators. At the McCash fire, for example, the team deployed a prototype drone pilot kit with that capability for the first time during an active incident.

As Mercer and his team pushed past stubborn tree branches searching for a spot to launch their drone, they were able to appreciate firsthand why these tools must be highly portable.

It’s worth noting the STEReO team has also been testing portable internet that can provide local connectivity, even in remote settings.

Witnessing how much the drone pilots were juggling was informative for the NASA team, stresses Abigail Tabor from NASA’s Ames Research Center:

They observed pilots having to make fast decisions by following fire-tactics updates via radio, while also tracking their drones in flight. This told the designers of STEReO’s software capabilities – like those for tracking piloted aircraft above and teams on the ground – that audio notifications could be an important feature to add since drone operators may not have the luxury of monitoring their airspace on a screen.

Now, as California’s fire season burns on, the NASA team will continue its observations in the field, learning from the firefighting experts how STEReO’s tools could help them most.