The UAS industry has an excellent safety record, but the occasional bad actor can still dominate media coverage, which can have an immeasurably negative impact on the industry's public perception.  “The coverage of bad incidents is so much heavier than the coverage of the everyday useful commercial flights that are happening safely,” says Miriam McNabb, CEO & contributing editor, JobForDrones & DRONELIFE, during a session titled “Public Perception of Unmanned Systems – How to Positively Shape Public Perception by Educating the Media, and Working Together as an Industry.”

Mannarino Systems & Software Inc. (Mannarino) of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, has announced the first successful flight for its proprietary real-time operating system, M-RTOS, which was installed on a remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) controlled by MicroPilot. Launched back in July, M-RTOS is a modular, flexible and affordable operating system designed for a wide range of aerospace applications, from Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) electronic hardware to federated LRU (LineReplaceable Unit) aircraft systems, to IMA (Integrated Modular Avionics) platforms.

EHang has unveiled the EHang 216L, which is the logistics version of the company's EHang 216 designed for short-to-medium-haul air logistics in both urban and rural areas. Boasting a payload of more than 440 pounds, which to EHang’s knowledge is the largest for multi-rotor autonomous aerial vehicles (AAVs) for aerial logistics, the EHang 216L opens up more commercial opportunities for the company in various urban and rural short-to-medium-haul aerial logistics use cases that require frequent and point-to-point flight tasks. One example that EHang highlights is in mountainous areas with poor road conditions, the EHang 216L can help boost the local economy by more quickly and efficiently transporting agricultural products.

Along with its partners Nordic Unmanned and the NORCE Research Institute AS, Schiebel is operating its Camcopter S-100 UAS to monitor ship emissions for French Maritime Authorities. Expected to run for three months, the operation began on Sept. 23.  The service providers for this French deployment cover ship sulphur emission monitoring in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes in the strait of Pas-de-Calais. Specifically, the Camcopter S-100 UAS measures the ships’ sulphur emissions to check compliance with the EU rules governing the sulphur content of marine fuels. Through the EMSA RPAS Data Centre, measurements are transmitted in real time to the relevant authorities.