Unmanned Vehicles

When I was listening to some of the presentations at the Sustainable Aviation Foundation symposium this week, it occurred to me that much of what I was hearing was simply an extension of the AUVSI event I covered earlier in the week. The lines between general aviation, manned aircraft in general and autonomous aircraft are […]

Airplanes that fly themselves already exist and the accepted wisdom is that we’re not too far from the day when all airplanes will be robotically operated. But maybe not. At the first annual Sustainable Aviation Foundation symposium in Redwood City, California, three experts in the field were asked about the immediate prospects for commercial autonomous […]

An unmanned airplane made a successful first test of cloud-seeding operations in Nevada, adding a new kind of industrial-use experiment to one of the nation’s FAA-designated UAS test sites. The UAS, which weighs less than 55 pounds and has a wingspan under 12 feet, flew for about 18 minutes last week and reached 400 feet, […]

The FAA will stand up a new advisory committee for the drone industry beginning sometime this summer, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said on Wednesday. Speaking at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International in New Orleans, Huerta said the committee will be modeled after a similar panel organized to funnel industry opinions into the emerging […]

I wasn’t precisely counting, but at this year’s AUVSI event, there seemed to be more companies hawking a particular kind of software meant to integrate, analyze and order the oceans of data and imagery that all these flying eyes in the sky are pumping into various networks. And everything is tied into what’s commonly called […]

At the AUVSI show in New Orleans, a new company called SkyeIntelligence was showing a trick drone with self-following capability. You simply launch it, and it follows your every move. AVweb shot this short news video on the product. view on YouTube

Although there haven’t been many accidents involving unmanned aircraft systems, there have been enough for the NTSB to begin building the investigatory resources to determine causes, just as they have for years with manned aircraft. In this exclusive AVweb podcast recorded at the AUVSI trade show in New Orleans, the NTSB’s Bill English explains what’s […]

As the U.S. military deals with the uncertain complexities of a future dependent on and driven by robotic technologies, the soldier of the future will have unprecedented precision capabilities, but also higher expectations than soldiers of the last generation. That’s one of several observations offered by General David Perkins at Xponential 2016, the AUVSI trade […]

As Amazon bolts at breakneck speed toward package delivery by autonomous drone, it sees future air traffic control and de-confliction as a series of overlapping but collaborating apps in which aircraft and controllers share separation tasks. Amazon’s Gur Kimchi, who’s overseeing the company’s PrimeAir drone development efforts, outlined a view of the future in which […]

As an early proponent of drones for television news stories, journalist Miles O’Brien says this technology has fundamentally shifted the way stories can be told. O’Brien is a well-known independent science and technology reporter with stories appearing frequently on PBS. AVweb spoke to O’Brien Tuesday at Xponential 2016, the trade and technology show of the […]