Iris Automation has announced that its customer, United Drone Holdings (UDH), has been granted the first beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone waiver in South Africa, which allows UDH to conduct long-range commercial flights with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. The BVLOS flight approval was granted by the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA), thanks to the utilization of the Iris Automation Casia onboard detect-and-avoid system. During live flight operations, Casia showcased its ability to make automated maneuvers to avoid collisions with manned aircraft. Thanks to this approval, UDH will not need visual observers or ground-based radars when conducting BVLOS flights, so only two crew members are needed to perform these flights. 

Through its parent organization Parrot, senseFly has “recapitalized its balance sheet and funding,” the company has announced, which will allow it to have a healthy operational outlook as it continues its growth path in the arena of fixed-wing drones. SenseFly says that this milestone shifts its status from a “promising start-up that pushed the boundaries of remote mapping to a leading manufacturer of professional fixed-wing drones.”  “senseFly is demonstrating a rare drone industry success story, transitioning from start-up to a mature, self-funded, successful business,” says Gilles Labossière, CEO of senseFly.

Northrop Grumman makes plenty of intelligent systems, including unmanned ones, and so do many other defense contractors.   The company would like to allow them to all work together, seamlessly, while requiring relatively little human oversight: what it calls Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), and its subset, Distributed Autonomous Responsive Control, or DA/RC.   "It is essentially a battle manager on steroids," says Scott Winship, the senior vice president for advanced programs at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. "These are all command nodes that exist, and communication nodes that exist ... so we could use what we have and link them this way."  

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) company Wisk is partnering with the New Zealand Government to establish a passenger transport trial in Canterbury, New Zealand utilizing Cora, Wisk’s self-flying, all-electric air taxi. “We are delighted to now have a signed agreement with the New Zealand Government, which will propel Cora’s entry to the air taxi market,” says Wisk CEO, Gary Gysin. “We see this agreement as a sign of confidence in our product and abilities to develop and deliver a safe and reliable air taxi service, starting in New Zealand.”