Airbus Aerial, the startup offshoot of commercial and defense giant Airbus, has been using its analytic tools to help insurance companies and first responders come to grips with California’s raging Carr fire, still only 61 percent contained as of Monday.   Airbus Aerial fuses satellite data with its in-house analytical systems to let insurance companies monitor areas they insure, enabling them to settle claims rapidly — in some cases, before the homeowner even knows their house has burned down.   One insurer logged into AA’s system on Friday and by Saturday had settled about a thousand claims, says AA President Jesse Kallman.    “With the satellite, it’s pretty interesting to be able to triage an entire county,” Kallman says.   

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University recently flew its UAS along the shorelines and above the water at Menard-May Park in Edgewater, Florida to capture high-resolution images and video of this area of Mosquito Lagoon, which is part of the Indian River Lagoon system. Organized and flown by faculty, staff and students from Embry-Riddle’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Science program, this aerial reconnaissance survey supports the Riverside Conservancy, which is a non-profit group dedicated to “restoring and preserving living shorelines in southeast Volusia County.”

Engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed a new control algorithm that allows a single UAS to herd an entire flock of birds away from the airspace of an airport. The project was inspired by the 2009 "Miracle on the Hudson," when US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of geese shortly after takeoff and forced pilots to land the plane in the Hudson River off Manhattan. “The passengers on Flight 1549 were only saved because the pilots were so skilled,” says Soon-Jo Chung, an associate professor of aerospace, and the principal investigator on the drone herding project.

In partnership with Alaska Sea Grant and Aleutian Aerial LLC, and with additional support from DJI, Oceans Unmanned Inc. has announced the expansion of its freeFLY initiative into Dutch Harbor, Alaska, to provide UAS aerial support for marine mammal entanglement response efforts in the region. The freeFLY program, which was launched earlier this year in Hawaii, provides training, equipment, and management oversight to networks of local volunteer UAS operators that are available to support response groups.