This Week in the Unmanned Systems and Robotics World

Airbus has revealed its concept for an autonomous flying taxi. The UAS, which will be named Vahana, will be capable of carrying a single passenger or cargo along a predetermined flight path, and will only veer off its course if trying to avoid an obstacle. The company hopes to fly a full size prototype of Vahana before the end of next year. (NDTV)

Uber, its self-driving truck subsidiary Otto, and Anheuser-Busch all teamed to make a mass beer delivery with an autonomous truck. The truck full of Budweiser beer made its way more than 120 miles, traveling from Fort Collins, Colorado to Colorado Springs. The only time that the driver behind the wheel actually drove was when the truck went on and off the highway ramp. (Fortune)

A paper entitled, A Compact Autonomous Underwater Vehicle With Cephalopod-Inspired Propulsion, published by the Marine Technology Society Journal, has revealed details about a 3-D printed autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). Dubbed the “squid-marine,” the system is designed to work with other independent vehicles, and it is capable of ingesting and expelling water for propulsion. The AUV was developed by Kamran Mohseni and his research group. (3D Printing Industry)

A company named Signia Pure is looking into the development of autonomous hearing aids. The company is seeking to help alleviate some common qualms with traditional hearing aids, such as size, comprehension and comfort. According to Yuri Teshler, a contributor to Forbes who tested the hearing aids, Signia’s hearing aids do a great job of filtering out noise, especially background noise, to help better understand speech recognition, and they are also more comfortable to wear. The aids are also equipped with several important features needed for everyday wear, and they are capable of synchronization, so that they can be used with smartphones, computers or Bluetooth technology. (Forbes)

Taser, which is responsible for making stun guns, would like to give police an autonomous, flying stun gun. The company wouldn’t use a system that they created themselves; instead, they would attach their stun gun, or in other cases a flashlight, to an already manufactured UAS, and have it be adaptable, so that police can switch out different things to point on the vehicle. (Geek)

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