[Updated with more info] Glad to see that the Pulsed Light team, which joined Garmin earlier this year, are back with a new version of the Lidar Light range finder. Not many details yet, but it's now listed for $150 at Sparkfun:

• Description: It’s back! This is the LIDAR-Lite v3, a compact, high-performance optical distance measurement sensor from Garmin™. When space and weight requirements are tight, the LIDAR-Lite v3 soars. The LIDAR-Lite v3 is the ideal solution for drone, robot or unmanned vehicle applications.

  This easy-to-use 40-meter laser-based optical ranging sensor has all the core features that made the LIDAR-Lite v2 so popular. Small in form and light in weight with low power consumption of less than 130mA during an acquisition. And it’s user-configurable so you can adjust between accuracy, operating range and measurement time.

  Each LIDAR-Lite v3 features an edge-emitting, 905nm (1.3 watts), single-stripe laser transmitter, 4m Radian x 2m Radian beam divergence, and an optical aperture of 12.5mm. The third version of the LIDAR-Lite still operates at 5V DC with a current consumption rate of <100mA at continuous operation. On top of everything else, the LIDAR-Lite is user-configurable, allowing adjustment between accuracy, operating range and measurement time. It can be interfaced via I2C or PWM.

  Note: The LIDAR-Lite v3 is available for pre-order. We expect to have these in stock and shipping by early to mid-October. Adding a pre-order product to an order may cause a delay. Be sure to uncheck “ship complete order” in your cart to avoid delays in shipping in-stock items.

  Dimensions: 20 x 48 x 40 mm (0.8 x 1.9 x 1.6 inches)

  Features:

  • Range: 0-40m Laser Emitter
  • Accuracy: +/- 2.5cm at distances greater than 1m
  • Power: 4.75–5V DC; 6V Max
  • Current Consumption: 105ma idle; 130ma continuous
  • Rep Rate: 1–500Hz
  • Laser Wave Length/Peak Power: 905nm/1.3 watts
  • Beam Divergence: 4m Radian x 2m Radian
  • Optical Aperture: 12.5mm
  • Interface: I2C or PWM

The Open Source Robotics Foundation (a member of Dronecode) is getting investment from Toyota Research to expand the development of both open source and proprietary applications of ROS. From IEEE Spectrum. 

Today, the Open Source Robotics Foundation announced a whole bunch of stuff, including a big pile of money from Toyota Research, what is probably an even bigger pile of money from Toyota Research, and the formation of the for-profit Open Source Robotics Corporation. That last thing might sound a little worrisome, since corporation-ness and open source-itude are often at odds, but we checked in with OSRF CEO Brian Gerkey, who explained how it’s all going to work.

The most straightforward bit of news is that the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) is making a charitable donation of US $1 million to the Open Source Robotics Foundation to “advance the development and adoption of open source robotics software.” In other words, TRI thinks that OSRF has been doing pretty good work with ROS and Gazebo over the last couple years, and they’re supporting that vision financially. Since it’s a donation, OSRF can use that money however it wants, meaning that it’s going to benefit the development of ROS and Gazebo for everyone.

From the beginning, OSRF has been a non-profit corporation, which is why it’s subsisted mostly on government contracts and donations from companies. As a non-profit, OSRF isn’t allowed to get paid directly for doing substantial amounts of work for specific companies. This causes two problems: First, it means that OSRF isn’t as effective at making improvements to ROS that are targeted at robots doing commercial and industrial stuff, which are areas where ROS has a lot of potential to expand. And that leads to the second problem, which is that OSRF can’t get financial support from partnerships with companies that (presumably) want to invest some of those aforementioned piles of money into making ROS better for themselves, and by extension, for the rest of us.

The brand new Open Source Robotics Corporation (OSRC) is a for-profit subsidiary of the Open Source Robotics Foundation. Basically, OSRC exists so that other companies can pay money for core ROS development, new features, or custom projects, without jeopardizing the non-profit status of its parent company, OSRF. As the press release very specifically and deliberately says, “OSRF will continue to create and distribute open source and free-of- charge applications for the robotics community, including ROS and Gazebo.” This is just going to make sure they have the resources they need to keep on doing so.

Speaking of resources, the final part of the announcement is that the Toyota Research Institute has “joined forces” with OSRC “to expand the development of both open source and proprietary tools for Toyota’s fast-growing robotics and automated vehicle research initiatives.” Specifically, or as specific as the press releases are willing to be:

“TRI signed a consulting agreement with the newly-formed Open Source Robotics Corporation. As part of the two-year agreement, TRI will leverage the expertise of OSRC’s engineering team, engaging them in a variety of initiatives.”

We’re hoping to hear back from TRI about what “a variety of initiatives” are, but we did manage to speak with Brian Gerkey, OSRF’s CEO, about what’s going on on their end:

IEEE Spectrum: What’s the Open Source Robotics Corporation, and why does it exist all of a sudden?

Brian Gerkey: What has changed over the last couple years is that we’re getting more interest from industry to financially support our work. This is a good thing, it’s showing that there’s commercial interest out there for using ROS and Gazebo in products. There are certain constraints associated with having a [non-profit] status that make it difficult to really do business in a serious way with industry. Our goal here is to simultaneously continue the mission of the foundation and continue to develop the open source work and support our community, but at the same time, have the ability to partner with industry, where they’re interested in contributing to that open source platform and perhaps, in some cases, applying it to their particular problems.

What we want to do is essentially continue doing the same work, but do it in a way that’s supporting this emerging industrial user base that we have, and be able to get their financial support without endangering the [non-profit] status of the foundation. We want to keep that as it is, but really start primarily operating day-to-day out of the corporation. What we’re doing now, we knew quite a while ago that we were going to do this, and this arrangement with TRI is causing us to execute this plan we had on the shelf.

Will most ROS users notice that anything is different going forward?

They should notice no difference at all. 

What should we expect from the partnerships between OSRF, OSRC, and TRI?

TRI is making a $1 million charitable contribution to OSRF. It will be at the discretion of OSRF to spend those funds in support of its mission. In addition, as part of a separate arrangement, TRI is entering into a substantial, multi-year research and development contract with OSRC for services related to ROS and Gazebo. 

Cars and robotics are two domains in which we expect that TRI’s efforts will rely in some non-trivial way on ROS and Gazebo. The role we’ll play is making sure that ROS and Gazebo are improved, extended, modified, and supported in a way that will help them achieve their research goals on those two broad domains. 

Will the work that OSRC does for TRI be contributed back into the ROS community?

What the OSRF and OSRC team is very good at doing is building open source software and contributing it back to the community. It’s that specialty that TRI has come to us to leverage. We anticipate that we will be making substantial contributions back to the open source community.

---

In addition to TRI, there are plenty of other companies that have already contributed to the health and future of ROS, like Qualcomm, NVIDIA, and Bosch. But, as Gerkey explained, OSRF has had to place significant limits on that kind of thing because of their non-profit status. OSRC, on the other hand, will be able to accept a much more substantial amount of support, while also providing industry with all of the help that it needs in a much more direct way.

As far as we can tell, this is good news for everyone, whether you’re a casual ROS user or an enormous multinational conglomerate. And if you’re the latter, hey, have you considered sponsoring a robotics blog lately?

Also, don’t forget that ROSCon 2016 is happening next month in Seoul, South Korea. There’s going to be some cool stuff announced there that we can’t tell you about yet, but it’s going to be awesome. Check out the program here.

[ OSRF ]

From Aerobugs, an interesting use of a Pixhawk-powered hex to drop "preferential insects" on crops:

The brainchild of Nathan Roy, Aerobugs is a commercial UAV operation licensed by Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to distribute preferential insects from the air over a variety of crops. These bugs, through their natural life cycle, kill pests that can destroy a number of crops including strawberry, tomato, brussel sprouts, pears and more.

The use of preferential insects to kill pests in crop production has been used for decades and is constantly being researched by Australia’s CSIRO. Normally insects are distributed by hand, either by walking or from a quad bike. This practice is slow and labour intensive, especially when considering tens of hectares or larger.

Starting out his business life as a 3rd generation strawberry famer, Nathan made the switch to UAV’s after losing 700 tons of strawberry crop to rain and weather damage. With the extended family switching to turf farming, Nathan decided to explore his interest in UAV’s to see if he could forge a business from his hobby.

Ordering his first UAV frame from eBay while sitting in the cab of his tractor, Nathan wondered if the spreading of preferential insects, a job normally done by hand on his farm, could be better managed from a suitably designed and built UAV.

 A true family business start-up, it was not long before Nathan’s wife, Amanda’s kitchen was full of UAV frames, motors and speed controllers. In fact, Amanda quickly picked up the job of designing and making the bag that would hold the insects and allow for a smooth distribution flow. Amanda produced seven or eight iterations of the design before settling on a design that seemed to work best for the initial commercial applications.

Meanwhile Nathan got busy on designing his now patented spreader. Mounted at the bottom of the bag the spreader produces an even distribution with very low insect mortality rates. The prop wash from Nathans home built, eight propeller UAV helps to make sure the insects penetrate deep into the crop foliage.

It was not all fun and playing with toys. Nathan had to negotiate the brand new playground of aviation regulation. Working closely with CASA to make sure he himself met all the requirements of a UAV commercial pilot, he then had to convince them that dropping insects from the sky was a perfectly acceptable use of UAV technology.

It took some support from the Bio Security division of Australia’s Department of Agriculture and Water Resources to help CASA understand what Nathan was doing. It was a two-year process to secure all the needed paperwork but then Nathan was something of a pioneer, and he remains one of CASA’s only UAV operations regulated to perform such tasks.

Nathan received a shock when CASA sent seven personnel to his flight test to receive his commercial UAV licence. It turned out however they just wanted as many CASA field staff to learn as much as they could to try to keep ahead of the UAV and RPA growth curve. Nathan passed with flying (pun intended) colours.

With hundreds of hours of testing and 12 months of application on a tomato farm with resounding success, Nathan began to grow his commercial preferential insects’ application business.

Operations

Aerobugs sources the preferential insects from Bugs for Bugs Pty Ltd based in Mundubbera, QLD. They have worked closely with Nathan from the start, and their field scouts conduct post application inspections to check the quality of the spread, mortality rates and to capture vital data, not only for cross checking with Nathan but for their own business and data analysis also.

The insects are mixed with a vermiculite medium so they have something to cling to, and so they fall cleanly below the UAV. Nathan has determined that a sweet spot of about 5 metres of altitude works best for an even distribution and so any breeze will not move the bugs too far from the UAV. Like any aerial application technique, Nathan uses the wind to his advantage as long as it is not too strong and positions the UAV accordingly as he manoeuvres along the rows.

Common pests include the Red Spider Mite or Two Spotted Mite and can affect hundreds of vegetable and food crops. A common insect that Aerobugs distributes to counteract these is the Preditor Mite (Phytoseiulus Persimillis) as they break the life cycle. Trichogramma wasps are also used to protect tomato crops.

Every job requires two people on site to manage the flight and keep the area safe. Even though the area is marked with signs stating there are low-level aerial operations in progress, people still love to walk across a paddock or up a dirt road to look at what s going on. At this point, the UAV is returned to the operator and parked in hover until the offending onlookers are clear of the area.

Australia wide Nathan has six cross-trained pilots who can operate as observers or pilots when he needs them. All flying is done manually for now as the autopilot software available for many UAVs is not quick enough at correcting for sudden wind gusts and altitude changes. Through plenty of experimentation, Nathan finds hand flying to be the most reliable for now.

The Machines

Nathan builds the UAV’s himself and there are six in the fleet. There have been many iterations along the way to perfect flight times with payload and reliability. These are not your average weekend hobby machines. They are expected to operate for hours a day over several days to keep up with demand. Flight times per battery charge average about 18 minutes.

Many of the required items are sourced from Foxtech. Nathan has tried many motors but has settled on the Foxtech 380KV motors as they provide hundreds of hours of reliability. Apart from the odd bearing change, his motors see over 450 hours regularly. Frames, props and his Foxtech 145G remote control are also sourced from Foxtech. The US Pixhawk with Mission Planner does flight control duties and the motor speed controllers come from Hobbywing.

The Aerobugs UAV’s are agriculture machines built to be strong, reliable and maintainable.

Regulation

The CASA environment at the time Nathan was putting all this together was still trying to grasp the realities of the speed of innovation. However, they have been very supportive in all respects even if it did take a few phone calls and meetings to work through all the issues.

With the help of RPV Australia, Nathan received his qualifications. Having to sit the Basic Aeronautical Knowledge (BAK) test, which discussed, amongst other things how to deal with carburettor icing in piston-powered aircraft was something of a curiosity, but Nathan persevered. Nathan is not the only one who thinks CASA can make some changes there.

Keeping the Aerobugs’ operations manual up to date with new designs and refining systems and processes for each type of crop operation keep Nathan and Amanda busy in between jobs. However, it has been worth it.

Aerobugs is leading the way in the application of preferential insects but is also paving the way for many other types of application processes in cropping.

Nathan can be contacted at www.aerobugs.com.au and for some video and the latest Aerobugs action visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/aerobugs/

When we announced earlier this year that we were going to be working with Sony to bring out the R10C, which has the best sensor in the industry, we also said we were going to do more than just strap a great camera on a Solo. And we did: we've created a custom gimbal and API interface with the R10C that allows Solo Site Scan to not only automatically control every aspect of the camera in real time during flight, but also automatically transfer full-resolution (20 megapixel) images to the cloud wirelessly in near real-time, via our new iOS app.  It's out now!

From the Verge:

GoPro might have accidentally given us a sneak peak of its Karma drone. The company announced earlier this week that it would be unveiling the anticipated aircraft for the first time later this month. A since-removed preview on several of the company’s European websites contain a thumbnail of what appears to be the anticipated aircraft.

GoPro will be holding an event on September 19th to show off the drone (and potentially its Hero5 camera). The image on its French, Italian, Spanish and German websites show off a black and white quadcopter, which links right to the company’s Karma page.

The site also showed off a previously unannounced stabilizer, which led directly to a 404 page.

When we released a bunch of new smart shots for Solo on iOS in June, we promised that they would be coming to Android, too. I'm pleased to report that the new Android app is now out. 

WHAT'S NEW

From PrecisionHawk's post on its milestone FAA approval to fly beyond visual line of sight, in which they describe their interesting LATAS system:

To further mitigate risk, PrecisionHawk uses an airspace display technology called LATAS to help track the aircraft and avoid potential hazards such as trees, powerlines or manned aircraft. While it is not a required to receive an EVLOS waiver, LATAS plays a key role in PrecisionHawk’s own operations. The LATAS web application is a free tool available on www.flylatas.com and provides an extra layer of safety and protection for any operator flying under Part 107.

The PX4 Pro flight control stack offers fully autonomous control of VTOL airframes including delta quads and planes, tail sitters and tilt rotors. Special thanks go to Droneslab for the airframe and UAVenture for the ongoing software development collaboration.

Support for the Parrot Bebop has been added by the ETH team so it can be used more in research and testing. More details here. 

It's customary and traditional that we celebrate the addition of every 1,000 new members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's a 80,000! 

There has been a huge amount of change in the drone market since this started as a hobby scratchpad for me back in 2007. We helped created a whole new industry, but it also moved from DIY to plug-and-play at light speed. The technologies, such as advanced IMUs, optical flow and cameras with computer vision, that we were first hacking together with parts from Sparkfun and Adafruit a few years ago are now standard on consumer drones that you can buy at Wal-Mart.

As drones become more sophisticated and autonomous (always the intention of this site), the hobbyists who just wanted to fly cool things shifted to FPV racing (called "drone racing" although by a strict definition they're not drones since their manually piloted).  The actual "drone" part of DIY drones is now more focused on software and sensing, rather than simply getting an aircraft to fly by itself (mission accomplished on that last part -- we've come a long way!). This software side is incredibly exciting, but it's also getting pretty complex for most hobbyists and naturally lives in the world of GitHub commits and dev lists.  That's what Dronecode, which is the professional side of this community, is for.

So what's next for the DIY side of drones? Here are some of the things I'm excited about:

1. DIY autonomous cars. Autonomous rovers are already a big part of DIY Drones, and those rovers are now starting to use many of the same technologies, such as computer vision and LIDAR, of full-size autonomous cars. Races like the Sparkfun AVC have been going for years, but now there are ones for full-size cars such as Self Racing Cars that I'm a part of. This could be the next big industry for the DIY'er to transform!
2. Applications of drones. I love posts like this one on the use of Pixhawk-powered drones to help with the European refugee crisis. Let's be as creative in finding innovative positive uses for drones as we were in creating them in the first place. 
3. Data. Drones are just sensors in the sky. Now that we've made it easy to gather huge amounts of data, what are we going to do with it? Change detection, automatic classification and other forms of AI and deep learning are the next frontier of Big Data, and we're at the forefront of that.  This is something we share with the new cubesat world and even driverless cars. Bits are the new atoms!

Thanks as always to all the community members who make this growth possible, and especially to the administrators and moderators who approve new members, blog posts and otherwise respond to questions and keep the website running smoothly.

Even if you don't plan to bring an autonomous rover to Sparkfun's AVC in Boulder, Colorado on Sept 17, you can still register as a spectator to see the racing. Tickets are now on sale here. 

Today at the Intel Developer Forum, CEO Brian Krzanichannounced both the company's Aero drone development board and a full ready-to-fly drone based on Aer on the company's RealSense sense-and-avoid solution, which is already used on the Yuneec Typhoon H drone. Both of them are using the Dronecode PX4 flight stack. 

Both will be available in Q4 2016. The Aero board is $399 and the price for the whole drone has not been set. More details are here. 

IDF San Francisco 2016 – Drones Intel Reveals UAV Developments and Availability of New Technologies at IDF Aug. 17, 2016 – Intel Corporation today announced its involvement in the development of multiple best-in-class unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly called drones, showcasing how they interact with their environment, solve problems and thrill users by helping them explore and interact with their worlds unlike ever before.

Intel® Aero Platform for UAVs Intel’s® Aero Platform is available today for developers to build their own drones. This purpose-built, UAV developer kit powered by an Intel® Atom™ quad-core processor combines compute, storage, communications and flexible I/O all in a form factor the size of a standard playing card. When matched with the optional Vision Accessory Kit, developers will have tremendous opportunities to launch sophisticated drone applications into the sky. Aero supports several “plug and play” options, including a flight controller with Dronecode PX4 software, Intel® RealSense™ technology for vision, AirMap SDK for airspace services, and will support LTE for communications. The Intel Aero Platform is available for preorder now on click.intel.com – the Intel Aero compute board is $399, the Intel Aero Vision Accessory Kit is $149, and the Intel Aero Enclosure Kit is $69.

A separate Intel Aero Platform Ready-to-Fly Drone will be available in Q4. Yuneec Typhoon H* with Intel RealSense Technology Now publically available, the Yuneec Typhoon H is the most advanced, compact aerial photography and videography platform available, featuring Intel RealSense technology. With an intelligent obstacle navigation system, the drone can see objects and self-navigate around them. The drone has an Intel RealSense camera and an Intel Atom processor while the ground station is also equipped with an Intel Atom processor. The Typhoon H with Intel RealSense technology is available for purchase for $1,899. AscTec Falcon 8* The AscTec Falcon 8 drone went into serial production in 2009 and has since been used globally for professional applications, most recently as an aerial inspection and surveying tool for Airbus*. The patented V-form octocopter is designed for precision and safety with the reliable AscTec HighPerformance GPS and the new control unit AscTec Trinity. It weighs only 2.3 kilograms on takeoff and works with maximum efficiency in the air, on- and offshore, even in challenging conditions.

Intel and Drone Policy Advocacy Intel CEO Brian Krzanich was recently appointed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to chair the Drone Advisory Council, a committee focused on addressing “integration strategies” regarding drones. In August, Brian addressed The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which includes experts in government, academia and industry, to discuss airspace integration, public and commercial uses, and ways to ensure safety, security and privacy in this emerging field. On Tuesday afternoon, Anil Nanduri (Vice President and General Manager, UAV Segment and Perceptual Computing Group at Intel), Earl Lawrence (Director, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Office at the Federal Aviation Administration), Art Pregler (UAS Director at AT&T*), Ronnie Gnecco (Innovation Manager for UAVs at Airbus), and Shan Phillips (USA CEO at Yuneec) discussed how new drone capabilities and regulatory changes present new opportunities for drone developers

This video shows work in progress done jointly by u-blox (an ETH spinoff) and PX4 (an ETH open source autopilot) to leverage the latest u-blox RTK hardware on the PX4 flight stack. No additional hardware is required, the RTCM correction data is forwarded straight from the ground control station via MAVLink (over Wifi)

Small, cheap ($13) laser ranger finder with 2m range and less noise than sonar. Sign me up!

The VL53L0X from ST Microelectronics is a time-of-flight ranging system integrated into a compact module. This board is a carrier for the VL53L0X, so we recommend careful reading of theVL53L0X datasheet (1MB pdf) before using this product.

The VL53L0 uses ST’s FlightSense technology to precisely measure how long it takes for emitted pulses of infrared laser light to reach the nearest object and be reflected back to a detector, so it can be considered a tiny, self-contained lidar system. This time-of-flight (TOF) measurement enables it to accurately determine the absolute distance to a target without the object’s reflectance greatly influencing the measurement. The sensor can report distances of up to 2 m (6.6 ft) with 1 mm resolution, but its effective range and accuracy (noise) depend heavily on ambient conditions and target characteristics like reflectance and size, as well as the sensor configuration. (The sensor’s accuracy is specified to range from ±3% at best to over ±10% in less optimal conditions.)

Ranging measurements are available through the sensor’s I²C (TWI) interface, which is also used to configure sensor settings, and the sensor provides two additional pins: a shutdown input and an interrupt output.

The VL53L0X is a great IC, but its small, leadless, LGA package makes it difficult for the typical student or hobbyist to use. It also operates at a recommended voltage of 2.8 V, which can make interfacing difficult for microcontrollers operating at 3.3 V or 5 V. Our breakout board addresses these issues, making it easier to get started using the sensor, while keeping the overall size as small as possible.

The carrier board includes a low-dropout linear voltage regulator that provides the 2.8 V required by the VL53L0X, which allows the sensor to be powered from a 2.6 V to 5.5 V supply. The regulator output is available on the VDD pin and can supply almost 150 mA to external devices. The breakout board also includes a circuit that shifts the I²C clock and data lines to the same logic voltage level as the supplied VIN, making it simple to interface the board with 3.3 V or 5 V systems, and the board’s 0.1″ pin spacing makes it easy to use with standard solderless breadboards and 0.1″ perfboards. The board ships fully populated with its SMD components, including the VL53L0X, as shown in the product picture.

For a similar but shorter-range sensor (up to 20 cm, or 60 cm with reduced resolution) that includes ambient light sensing functionality, see our VL6180X carrier.

VL53L0X datasheet graph of typical ranging performance (in default mode).

Specifications

• Dimensions: 0.5″ × 0.7″ × 0.085″ (13 mm × 18 mm × 2 mm)
• Weight without header pins: 0.5 g (0.02 oz)
• Operating voltage: 2.6 V to 5.5 V
• Supply current: 10 mA (typical average during active ranging)
  • Varies with configuration, target, and environment. Peak current can reach 40 mA.
• Output format (I²C): 16-bit distance reading (in millimeters)
• Distance measuring range: up to 2 m (6.6 ft); see the graph at the right for typical ranging performance.
  • Effective range depends on configuration, target, and environment.
  • The datasheet does not specify a minimum range, but in our experience, the effective limit is about 3 cm.

Included components

A 1×7 strip of 0.1″ header pins and a 1×7 strip of 0.1″ right-angle header pins are included, as shown in the picture below. You can solder the header strip of your choice to the board for use with custom cables or solderless breadboards, or you can solder wires directly to the board itself for more compact installations.

Nice looking bird! Pixhawk/APM powered, at least last time I checked. From Newatlas (fromerly Gizmag)

Many of the remote villages in the Ifanadiana district of Madagascar aren't linked to the outside world by decent roads. Among other things, this means that it can be very difficult getting medical samples to labs in a timely fashion. That's where a project led by New York-based Stony Brook University comes in. It's been using autonomous drones to get biological samples from those villages to a central testing center, where they can be checked for diseases such as tuberculosis.

The GPS-guided drones were made by project partner Vayu, Inc. They take off and land vertically, like a helicopter, but switch to faster and more efficient fixed-wing flight once they reach altitude.

Starting on July 27th, they began transporting blood and stool samples from the villages to Stony Brook's Centre ValBio research station, located on the edge of Madagascar's Ranomafana National Park. There, the samples could be properly stored and analyzed. A previous study has indicated that blood samples aren't affected by being transported in a drone.

"The flights to and from villages in the Ifanadiana district ushers in a new era in bringing healthcare to people living in really remote settings," said Dr. Peter Small, the Founding Director of Stony Brook's Global Health Institute. "In this context, drones will find innumerable uses such as accelerating the diagnosis of tuberculosis and ensuring the delivery of vaccines."

Supporting the project were the Madagascar government and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The drones can be seen in action, in the video below.

A reminder from Sparkfun:

We are one week away from closing registration for all autonomous competitions in this year’s AVC, which includes both the Classic AVC race and Autonomous Power Racing Series. Online registration for PRS and Combat Bots closes September 16, and on-site registration for both of those competitions will be open from 7 a.m. - 8 a.m. on September 17.

If you are planning to enter an autonomous competition, please submit the following build progress verification videos to avc@sparkfun.com:

• August 25: Video demonstration of electronic control of steering and throttle
• September 9: Video demonstration of autonomous 90-degree turn

Additional information regarding waivers, travel and the day-of competition schedule will be sent via email the week of August 15 to all registered teams. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to reach out to us with questions! And - if you’re interested in attending AVC as a spectator (it’s going to be amazing), tickets will be going on sale next Monday, so check back for that announcement!

Long but worth it, Backchannel has a comprehensive update on drones used to combat poaching on land and sea. One interesting data point:

One pilot project in a protected area in Kenya saw a 96 percent reduction in poaching after it began patrolling with drones. Ditto with a WWF-funded project in Nepal, although in the Nepalese case, the drones were part of a larger overhaul in how rangers conducted their business. These successes, plus various other projects in the works, raise the possibility of a major advance in conservation — a leap enabled by drones.

I've been using this one in beta for a few months and I'm really impressed. Now it's available to everyone on Indiegogo. FlytPod  combines PX4 and ROS in a very easy-to-use SDK, with an onboard HTML-based ground station and a powerful Odroid-based computer with a long-range Wifi access point. A great deal at $399 for the early bird special.   

Whether you are building a drone for Agriculture, Inspections, Surveys, Delivery or Emergency Response, FlytPOD will help you accelerate your development. It comes with a hybrid architecture and a reliable sensor suite for safe operation of drones. Further, its powerful processor, communication system, support for variety of payloads and framework for developing onboard and offboard user apps will give you a headstart in building advanced drone applications. 

FlytPOD is an advanced flight computer that brings together Power and Simplicity to kickstart development of commercial drone applications.

RUN ADVANCED ALGORITHMS ONBOARD

The octa-core processor allows for implementation of computationally intensive algorithms. This opens doors for AI techniques with Computer Vision, Machine Learning enabling intelligent onboard decisions.

BUILD INTERNET OF DRONES

FlytPOD’s communication architecture allows your drone to connect with other drones, share data with ground devices, be it mobile, laptop or wearables and also connect to the cloud. Build internet of Drones with standard connectivity interfaces over WiFi, 3G or 4G.

INTEGRATE YOUR PAYLOADS

FlytPOD’s hardware interfaces are designed to support a variety of payloads so that you can equip your Drone with specialized sensors or actuators as required for your application domain.

RUNS ITS OWN OPERATING SYSTEM-FLYTOS

FlytOS is an Operating System for drones. This provides a solid foundation and a framework for developers so that you only need to focus on your business logic and you can quickly build apps specific to your domain.

FlytOS is based on Linux and ROS (Robot Operating System) making it an ideal platform for research and commercial drone applications. It comes integrated with proven PX4 autopilot codebase and provides high level functions for drone autonomy through FlytAPIs in ROS, CPP, Python, RESTful and Websocket.

BUILD SIMULATE DEPLOY

You can develop web or mobile apps for drones in your favorite development environment using the open FlytAPIs. The apps can be tested in FlytSim - 3D Simulator before the drone even takes off. FlytSim supports all the FlytAPIs and the simulated drone includes a RGB camera mounted on a 3-axis gimbal along with a front-facing RGBD camera. After successful testing in simulator, you can easily deploy the apps on FlytPOD.

The exhaustive documentation and forum will help you get onboard and will support you through your development journey. 

HYBRID ARCHITECTURE

FlytPOD has a hybrid architecture with a real time flight controller and a high power processor for advanced functions. The critical flight stack is handled by the real time controller and is decoupled from the user apps enabling fail-safe.

           

RELIABILITY

For reliable state estimation, FlytPOD comes with a suspended IMU for vibration damping, an external magnetometer and support for RTK GPS. FlytPOD PRO also offers triple redundancy for IMU, dual pressure sensor and dual GPS for applications requiring higher reliability. 

 

BUILT-IN FUNCTIONS & APPS

Several built-in functions and apps complete the user experience and provide a solid foundation to for your own applications.

The main technical specifications are highlighted below. Click here for a detailed list. 

FlytPOD comes fully loaded with all the essentials to get you started with your drone app. For applications that demand higher reliability and superior performance, FlytPOD PRO offers sensor redundancy and faster eMMC upgrades.