The project team under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation has announced that the country’s first near-space solar drone, called Caihong (CH), or Rainbow, has successfully completed a flight at an altitude of 20 kilometers, or nearly 12 and a half miles.
The UAS, which has a wingspan of 45 meters, flew “smoothly in near space for over 15 hours under control, finishing its scheduled path,” and then landed safely.
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Delair-Tech’s UAS selected as drones of choice for French government agencies purchasing fixed wing UAS
A week after it was announced that Delair-Tech and RTE set a new distance record by flying a civilian UAS 30 miles beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) in France, it has been announced that Delair-Tech’s DT18 and DT26X UAS have been selected as the drones of choice for French government agencies purchasing fixed wing UAS.
The Union of Public Procurement Groups (UGAP), “which acts as the purchasing conduit for government agencies across the country,” made the decision, and as a result, UGAP will add Delair-Tech’s UAS to its purchasing catalog, which is used by public agencies such as the army, police forces and firefighters.
Rochester Police Department demonstrates Indago UAS being used for Project Lifesaver program
The Rochester Police Department in Rochester, Minnesota, has demonstrated its new UAS, which is a Lockheed Martin-manufactured Indago UAS that can fly 55 minutes, and is capable of flying in inclement weather.
The Indago UAS will be used as a part of the Project Lifesaver program, which is designed to “respond quickly to save lives and reduce potential injury for adults and children who wander due to Alzheimer's, autism and other related conditions or disorders,” according to the Post Bulletin.
Through the program, when clients wander, a transmitter that they are wearing is activated.
Police in China using UAS for various tasks
UAS are being used across China to help police conduct a variety of missions.
Recently, a UAS was used to help search for, and capture, a man who robbed a woman and then disappeared into a “sprawling, muddy village” in the Minhang District.
Through the Shanghai Daily, officer Wen Jia of the Tianyuan Xincun police station (which handled the Minhang robbery) explained why the UAS was so beneficial in this situation by saying, “in the case of the June 1 robbery, we didn’t have enough manpower to quickly search the whole village. A drone did the work for us.”
Delair-Tech and RTE fly UAS 30 miles BVLOS using 3G Cell Network
Delair-Tech and RTE recently flew a civilian UAS 30 miles beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), setting a new distance record.
The flight, which used a 3G communication network to guide the UAS, was flown in France.
“In collaboration with RTE, we used for the first time in France a 3G network to guide the drone, allowing real-time communication from any distance,” says Michael Lagarde, President & Co-Founder of Delair-Tech.
“This removes an important technological barrier. It is a first step toward making drones the most common method for inspections of infrastructure that stretches over large distances, such as power lines and pipelines.”
Traffic jam in the skies: NASA updates UTM effort
By Clark Perry
There could be 7 million UAS vehicles flying in U.S. airspace by the year 2020, according to the FAA. It’s a staggering number, especially when it comes to safely managing all that air traffic.
To get a sense of what the skies may be like in just a few years, imagine the following scenario: firefighting aircraft are racing to the scene of a wildfire, only to find their air path strewn with municipal UAS vehicles inspecting power lines, hobbyists capturing vacation footage with the latest off-the-shelf drone from Best Buy, and Amazon Prime’s local drone fleet launching to make their daily deliveries.
Insitu’s Integrator UAS to replace ScanEagle systems being used by Netherlands Ministry of Defence
After awarding the Short Range Tactical UAV (SRTUAV) contract to Insitu, the Netherlands Ministry of Defence (NMOD) will replace the ScanEagle systems currently being used by the NMOD defence forces with three of Insitu’s Integrator UAS.
Designed to be a “modular, flexible and multi-mission capable solution for land and maritime operations,” the Integrator is a multi-mission, long-endurance UAS that can conduct a variety of missions, including target acquisition, force protection, and battle damage assessment.
Virginia Tech takes part in testing of NASA's unmanned traffic management research platform
As a part of a national campaign to test NASA's unmanned traffic management research platform, UAS operations were conducted at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia during the week of June 5, to test technology that is designed to allow multiple aircraft to safely share the same airspace.
The test flights were designed to “mimic what operators might encounter if widespread commercial UAS flights beyond line of sight become commonplace.” During the test flights, multiple aircraft carried out several different simulated missions simultaneously.
The aircraft communicated with NASA’s central cloud-based platform using different software interfaces, which allowed them to respond to changes in the airspace.
Students honored for Naval meteorological studies
Graduates of the first Unmanned Maritime Systems Certification program from the University of Southern Mississippi received their certificates late last week in a ceremony marking the end of an unmanned systems demonstration in the Gulf of Mexico.
The class was created by the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, and the 15 graduates were presented their certificates by Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, commander of the meteorological service.
John Meyer, deputy technical director for the command, said the program is the first of its kind in the country. It took about a year and a half to pull together, and more classes are planned.