To demonstrate the capability and suitability of its fixed-wing drones and drone sensors for precision agriculture, senseFly has announced partnerships with Trimble and Microsoft.
“Trimble and Microsoft are major players in the agriculture sector, and these relationships are a testament to senseFly’s drones operating at the high standards required by large organizations to deliver the results they need,” says Gilles Labossière, CEO of senseFly.
Software
Software
Wayve to use funding to launch pilot fleet of autonomous vehicles in central London
With a focus on accelerating autonomous mobility through learning based approaches instead of hand-coded rules, startup company Wayve has announced a $20 million Series A funding round to launch a pilot fleet of autonomous vehicles in central London.
Wayve is of the belief that more physical sensors and hand-coded rules aren't the key to solving the complexity of self-driving cars. Instead, the company believes that better artificial intelligence “brains” are the key to solving the complexity of self-driving cars.
AeroVironment awarded contract to support Middle eastern ally's Puma AE and Raven B tactical UAS
A Middle eastern ally has awarded AeroVironment a firm fixed-price contract worth nearly $12 million for logistics support, spares, and repair services in support of its existing fleet of AeroVironment Puma AE and Raven B tactical UAS.
With a period of performance of two years, the contract was awarded on Oct.25, AeroVironment says.
DroneDeploy to use latest funding to expand internationally, continue building suite of offerings
DroneDeploy has closed a $35 million Series D round, bringing the company’s total funding to $90 million.
DroneDeploy will use the funding to expand internationally, move into new industries, and continue building out its suite of offerings for customers.
“Businesses of every size are turning to DroneDeploy to enable them to make better decisions,” says Mike Winn, co-founder and CEO of DroneDeploy.
Airbus Helicopters' VSR700 UAS flies for the first time
On Friday, Nov. 8, Airbus Helicopters’ VSR700 UAS prototype performed its first flight at a drone test center near Aix-en-Provence in the south of France.
The UAS performed several take-offs and landings, with its longest flight lasting approximately 10 minutes.
The VSR700 UAS was tethered with 30-meter cables to fully secure the flight test zone, so that it was in compliance with airworthiness authority that provided the flight clearance. Going forward, the flight test program will move towards free flight, with plans to progressively open the flight envelope.
RTI unveils Connext Drive platform for autonomous vehicles
Real-Time Innovations (RTI) has unveiled Connext Drive, a platform that the company says provides the necessary software and tools to automotive manufacturers to build highly autonomous vehicles and fleets.
RTI says that Connext Drive allows autonomous vehicle makers to develop and build vehicles without the high risk and cost of in-house technologies. The platform also eliminates the difficulty of adapting legacy connectivity, as it bridges both research and production technologies, and supports development from prototype to end use.
Equipped with a native Software Development Kit (SDK) for developing and integrating vehicle applications, Connext Drive supports software from the research phase all the way through to production.
European Maritime Safety Agency extends contract for Schiebel's Camcopter S-100 UAS
The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) has extended the contract for Schiebel’s Camcopter S-100 UAS to the end of the year after two months of successful maritime surveillance services for the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure of the Republic of Croatia.
Based on the Croatian island of Brač, EMSA’s Camcopter S-100 performs regular day and night patrolling flights, on-demand incident monitoring missions and specific inspection operations.
Thus far, the UAS, which is equipped with Harris L3 Wescam Electro-Optical / Infra-Red (EO/IR) camera, an Overwatch Imaging PT-8 Oceanwatch payload and an Automatic Identification System (AIS) receiver, has completed 67 missions and 210 flight hours during two months of maritime operations.
KDOT, Iris Automation conduct first BVLOS UAS flight using only onboard detect-and-avoid systems
The Kansas Department of Transportation’s (KDOT) UAS Integration Pilot Program (IPP) recently successfully completed the first beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) UAS flight that utilized only onboard detect-and-avoid systems.
This was the first time under Part 107 that the FAA has authorized a UAS to fly BVLOS without a requirement for visual observers or a ground-based radar, as the flight instead utilized Iris Automation’s detect-and-avoid system known as Casia, which provides commercial drones with automated collision avoidance maneuvers.
NIO, Mobileye partner to develop autonomous vehicles
Chinese automobile manufacturer NIO has announced a strategic collaboration with Mobileye, an Intel company that develops vision technology for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving, to develop highly automated and autonomous vehicles (AV) for consumer markets in China and other major territories.
Through the collaboration, Mobileye will design a self-driving system that NIO will engineer and manufacture. The companies say that they will build on Mobileye’s level-4 (L4) AV kit.
Hydroid integrating Seaglider AUV Division into its organization
Kongsberg Maritime subsidiary Hydroid Inc. has announced the integration of the Seaglider AUV Division into its organization.
Seaglider is being transferred from Kongsberg Underwater Technology Inc. (KUTI), which will allow Hydroid to utilize complementary technologies and markets across the REMUS and Seaglider product lines.
With the integration of Seaglider into Hydroid, the range of technical solutions and program management support that can be offered to customers also increases.
