From IEEE Spectrum

By Evan Ackerman

Yesterday at CES, Quanergy, an automotive startup based in Sunnyvale, Calif., held a press conference to announce the S3, a solid-state LIDAR system designed primarily to bring versatile, comprehensive, and affordable sensing to autonomous cars. The S3 is small, has no moving parts, and in production volume will be US $250 or less. According to Quanergy, the S3 is better than traditional LIDAR systems in every single way, and will make it easier and cheaper for robots of all kinds to sense what’s going on in the world around them.

LIDAR systems work by firing laser pulses out into the world and then watching to see if the light reflects off of something. By starting a timer when the pulse goes out and then stopping the timer when the sensor sees a reflection, the LIDAR can do some math to figure out how far away the source of the reflection is. And by keeping careful track of where it’s pointing the laser, the LIDAR gets all of the data that it needs to place the point in 3D space.

In order to build up a complete view of the world, a LIDAR needs to send out laser pulses all over the place. The way to do it is to have one laser and one sensor and them move them both around a whole bunch, usually by scanning the whole LIDAR unit up and down or spinning it in a circle or both. You’ve probably seen these things whirling around on the top of autonomous cars. And they work fine, but they’ve got some problems: namely, they’re kind of big, they’re stupendously expensive, and because they have to be moving all the time, they’re not really reliable enough for consumer use.

This is where Quanergy comes in: its solid-state LIDAR has no moving parts. Zero. Not even micromirrors or anything like that. Instead, Quanergy’s LIDAR uses an optical phased array as a transmitter, which can steer pulses of light by shifting the phase of a laser pulse as it’s projected through the array:

Image: Quanergy

Each pulse is sent out in about a microsecond, yielding about a million points of data per second. And because it’s all solid-state electronics, you can steer each pulse completely independently, sending out one pulse in one direction and another pulse in a completely different direction just one microsecond later. Essentially, you can think of Quanergy’s chip as acting like a conventional glass lens, except that it’s a lens that you can reshape into any shape you want every single microsecond.

Full article here

From inverse.com

By Adam Toobin

If 2015 was the year of the drone, 2016 is turning out to be the year of drone regulations. The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered that all drones be registered with the federal government by February of this year and is imposing major fines on operators flying near restricted spaces.

Now, thanks to a lawsuit filed in federal court seeking damages from a Kentucky man who shot down his neighbor’s drone as it allegedly flew over his property, the FAA may receive the authority to regulate even more precisely where it is legal to fly a drone, even over your own property.

Back in July, William Merideth sniped neighbor David Boggs’ drone out of the sky as it flew about 200 feet above his property. Meredith has been cleared of criminal charges for the incident, but now Boggs is claiming that since his flight could not be thought of as trespassing in the traditional sense, he is entitled to damages due to the destruction of his drone.

What makes the case unique is that the federal court will have to wade into an area where there is very little precedent to act as guidance. The FAA, of course, governs the airspace of the United States, a vast and complicated area that sees thousands of major commercial flights every day, but it’s not clear when airspace even begins. Everyone has the right to build a house on their property without informing federal airspace regulators, right?

Well, the FAA told Ars Technica last year that it is “is responsible for the safety and management of U.S. airspace from the ground up,” and the drone operator in the Kentucky case is asserting that “the United States Government has exclusive sovereignty over airspace of the United States.” So, if the airspace over your house belongs to the government, then you don’t have the right to claim that a drone operating there is trespassing on your property, any more than you’d have such a claim against a helicopter pilot flying overhead.

Established case law suggests that owning property guarantees at least the right to use of the area up to 83 feet above ground level, effectively the height of anything you might need to build, and sets the minimum height of a safe mannedflight at 500 feet. While it may seem crazy that above our heads there’s 417 feet of Wild West, before the growth of the consumer drone fleet, the issue just didn’t come up very often.

The ruling in this case could have a significant impact on the future of the sUAS hobby and industry.

Full article 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 big 74,000!!!!

There were approximately 1.3 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 43,000 page views a day on average). It took us just 34 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 49 minutes!

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.

Regards,

TCIII Admin

From gizmag

By  LOZ BLAIN  DECEMBER 20, 2015

You've got your first quadcopter, you've read the broken-English manual and assembled it, you've got your head around the transmitter and you're ready to give this thing a crack. Here are some basic exercises to try on your first few flights that will hopefully help you make it to your second few flights with just as many props, frames, pets and limbs as you started with.

First things first:

Where to learn to fly your quadcopter

If you're flying anything heavier than, say, 200 g (7 oz), you're going to have to do it outside. Look for somewhere:

• wide open
• free from power lines, cell phone towers or transformers (electromagnetic interference can screw with your transmission signal and cause random flyaways)
• free from trees if possible
• free from pedestrian traffic

Don't fly in high winds. In fact, for your first flight you'll want as little wind as possible, particularly if your drone is fairly light or not equipped with GPS stabilization.

You might need more space than you think. Even a small drone can easily get away from you and end up 50 meters away in just about any direction if you panic and hit the wrong controls!

If you're flying a small, light drone like the Hubsan X4, Blade Nano or Syma X5, you're probably safer starting off inside in a clear room where you won't have to compensate for wind. Mini, micro and nano class drones tend to get blown around a bit outside.

In both cases, stay away from people, and be aware that quadcopters tend to upset pets.

Pre-flight checks

Before you take to the air, a few quick checks can save you a lot of heartache and spare parts.

• check that the quadcopter and transmitter both have charged batteries
• check quadcopter battery is securely locked in place and connected
• check that there's nothing loose or broken on the quadcopter
• check propellers are securely fitted
• check that leading edges of the props aren't hacked up with crash damage (your quad might still fly with damaged props, but at high speed this is a common cause of vibration that can cause heat damage to your motors and play havoc with onboard gyroscopes and sensors. Best to get a bunch of spare props and throw out anything that's not in good condition. Mind you, almost nobody follows this advice, so do with it what you will.)
• visual/tactile check for loose screws
• turn on the quadcopter
• back up a few steps, with the quad's back lights facing directly towards you
• turn on the transmitter and "bind" it with your drone if necessary
• one last check of your surroundings to make sure there are no people or pets about

All good? Let's fly!

The Golden Rule

IF YOU CRASH, THROTTLE OFF IMMEDIATELY!

This is an important reflex to develop. You're gonna crash this thing. It might get tangled in tree leaves or long grass. It might end up upside down on pavement or stones. Heck, if you're out of control it might end up flying right into your face. Whatever happens, you don't want those props spinning.

At a minimum you'll scuff up the propellers, affecting their aerodynamics and your ability to fly smoothly. If a prop is stuck and the throttle is left on, you can burn out your motors. And of course, if it's flying right at your face the last thing you want is a high-speed haircut. Cut the throttle immediately.

The pointers and insights appearing in this beginner tutorial may seem obvious to experienced members, but could save a novice flyer a lot of grief in damaged hardware and unintended personal and/or property damage.

Full article here

From Hackaday

by: Elliot Williams

A Japanese protester flew a quadcopter with a symbolic amount of soil from the contaminated Fukushima region onto the roof of the Prime Minister’s office in April. Although it was a gesture, it alerted the Tokyo police department to the potential need to be able to pull drones out of the air.

Simply shooting them down won’t do — think of the innocent bystanders on the ground subjected to a rain of quadcopter parts. The Tokyo police’s solution: catch them in a net, flown by another quadcopter, of course.

We can’t embed it here, but go click through to the video. It looks like the police are having a really good time. How long before we see drone-net sets under the Christmas tree, or quadcopter-tag leagues? We’re uncertain of how far the Battlebots in the Sky movement got.

We have no shortage of yahoos driving quadcopters in the States, of course. From interfering with fire-fighting aircraft to simply flying too close to commercial airplanes, people are doing things that they simply shouldn’t. We’ve been covering the US government’s response that finally culminated in the FAA making rules requiring medium-weight drones to be registered. Watch our front page for more on that next week. Fly safe, folks.

Full article here

From the Arduino Blog

Zoe Romano — December 16th, 2015

Even though this blog post is not about a truly autonomous vehicle I feel that the video at the end of the post as to why great documentation is the key to maintaining a robust open source community is important to all of us in the open hardware/open software sUAS community.

Farmbot is the first open source cnc farming machine with the aim to create an open and accessible technology aiding everyone to grow food and to grow food for everyone. It runs on open source hardware like Arduino Mega 2560 and  involves a community of contributors on the wiki and forum where you can find documentation, schematics, assembly guides, troubleshooting tips and many more on all currently supported and old FarmBots.

Documentation has been a key element of the project since the beginning and Farmbot founder, Rory Aronson at the 2015 Hackaday SuperConference, gave a talk about why great documentation is the key to building a community of hackers who continue to build upon open source technologies:

Full article here

Cars designed to be completely driverless, like that being tested by Google, are to be initially excluded from being granted licenses

From gizmag

STU ROBARTS    DECEMBER 17, 2015

To many, the concept of self-driving cars will still seem absurd. In California, however, they are very real. Not only has testing been allowed on its public roads since last year, but the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has now drafted regulations for the public use of autonomous cars.

California issued its first permit for testing an autonomous vehicle on its public roads to Audi in last September. Only this week we reported on its most recent license for testing, awarded to Ford. Now, though, the DMV is looking to set down what will be required in order for members of the public to operate autonomous cars as a matter of course.

The DMV says the "draft regulations are intended to promote the continued development of autonomous vehicle technology in California, while transitioning manufacturers from testing to deployment of self-driving cars." Among the issues that the regulations seek to address are vehicle safety, certification, operator responsibilities, licensing and registration, privacy, and cyber-security

The regulations will not simply be dictated from on high, however, but will be publicly consulted on first. Workshops will be carried out to gather input from industry, consumer and public interest groups, academics and the public.

"The primary focus of the deployment regulations is the safety of autonomous vehicles and the safety of the public who will share the road with these vehicles," says DMV director Jean Shiomoto. "We want to get public input on these draft regulations before we initiate the formal regulatory rule making process."

Apparently Google is "...gravely disappointed that California is already writing a ceiling on the potential for fully self-driving cars to help all of us who live here."

Key points and full article here

From Hackaday

 Gregory L. Charvat

In laymen’s terms they built a shark-chasing robot. You can guess what happened next…

The back story is a little more reputable. I recently attended the Center for Marine Robotics meeting at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and learned about a very interesting robot. For the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week the network partnered with [Amy Kukulya] at WHOI to develop an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that locates, follows, and films sharks in their natural habitats, swimming, patrolling, doing their thing.

The AUV platform is called REMUS and it was extensively modified for the job. The shark gets tagged with an acoustic beacon. An acoustic homing array on the front of the robot follows the beacon. Additional systems on board keep the robot straight, level, and perform navigation tasks. Numerous GoPros are mounted for filming. The REMUS AUV cruises with the sharks for many miles and long durations. During this time it sends back meta data, location, speed, orientation, and any faults.

One day while operating in Guadalupe Island a very strange fault occurred. The vehicle suddenly found itself in a strange attitude, unexpected velocity vector, then it had a water alarm. Communications stopped on its way to the surface but it came up anyway. When the crew pulled it from the water they noticed huge gouges in its paint. The GoPro footage revealed what had happened….

A shark attacked the robot.

These sharks in particular were feeding on seals. It seems that the shark was below the robot and confused its silhouette for a seal. The shark attacked by swimming up at the robot from deep water.

To sharks swimming in deep water, AUVs closer to the surface kind of look like dinner.

In the video you can actually hear the shark’s teeth crunching up against the aluminum hull of the AUV. And there is more shark vs. robot footage showing different angles of attack.

This wild and sensational encounter aside, real science has been gained from these robot-enabled missions. Sharks’ area of operation, patrolling patterns, methods of feeding, and how they interact with other sharks were only revealed to us recently by [Amy’s] shark-following robot. Future work may include following other large marine animals such as sea turtles or whales.

As the late [Prof. David Staelin] once told me, ‘make a new instrument and observe nature with it, you will always learn something new.

This autonomous robot is probably the very smart way to observe sharks and other dangerous ocean dwellers without endangering human observers.

Full article here

Hack a Day by George Graves

Traditionally, getting into the hobby of flying model aircraft required spending some serious coin, not to mention hours and hours of building and learning. All of that leading up to a white-knuckled, hair raising maiden flight. If you were extremely lucky, you’d head home with only a slightly damaged plane – but many of us did a nice death spiral straight into the ground – all just so we could go home, and then start all over. Perhaps one of the reasons we’re seeing so many (negative) drone related news stories recently is that the price of admission to join the club of flying machines has never been so low. That, and there always seems to be one kid in the class that wants to ruin it for the rest of us.

This year the FAA expects about a million people to wake up Christmas morning with a drone under the tree.  And that’s a lot of chances for people to mess up. So if you’re planning on taking a drone up this year, you might want to watch the video after the break; Or just forward it to those that you think need to see it. If you’re into any sort of flying models you should already have [FliteTest] in your YouTube subscriptions – they have some really informative video, especially for the beginner wanting to get into the hobby.

This video guide is meant to be just a short introduction of what not to do. Obviously it doesn’t cover everything.  And we wouldn’t be looking out for our readers if we didn’t say that your local laws may vary – so do your homework, stay safe, and don’t be a drone noob.

From gizmag

 NICK LAVARS DECEMBER 3, 2015

Drones have continued to capture our imagination in remarkable ways throughout 2015. Despite the thick layers of bureaucracy that outlaw commercial use in much of the world, fresh ideas itching to put the technology to use constantly come to the fore. Let's cast our eye over some of the more promising to emerge this year; a diverse list that includes everything from drones that deliver medical supplies to drones that can build bridges all by themselves.

This is an exceptionally eye opening article that is too lengthy to do it justice as a simple blog post. It is a compilation of some of the most interesting innovations in the sUAS community for 2015 some of which have appeared on our front pages.

Enjoy!

Full article 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 big 73,000!!!!

There were approximately 1.2 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 40,000 page views a day on average). It took us just 34 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 49 minutes!

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.

Regards,

TCIII Admin

From Hack a Day by Al Williams

If you want to make a submersible robot (or, really, any robot) you can either design it for a specific mission, or you can try to make it general purpose. The researchers at the Cura Oceanus Foundation opted for the latter approach with RiverBot, a community-designed unmanned submersible.

Comparing it to the Space Shuttle, the RiverBot has payload bays that accept sensor kits or custom-made payloads. The builders hope to provide a platform for students and others and want to have students start with RiverBot in middle school, and keep working with the program all the way up to the PhD level.

Current projects center on environmental studies of water. The device uses software based on AUV Workbench, and investigators can use it to help create mission plans. The video below shows the foundation’s CEO [Ahmed Abdelkhalek] talking about the project’s goals and conducting their first open water test. According to their web site, they will not charge K-12 schools and homeschoolers for missions, other than travel expenses, if necessary.

We thought it was cool that the 3D modeling expert that designed the RiverBot frame is a local high school student. Their design files are available on a separate page, and will eventually move to GitHub.

Of course, this isn’t the first underwater vehicle we’ve talked about, and we shouldn’t be surprised at smart students doing interesting things underwater.

Full article 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 big 72,000!!!!

There were approximately 1.2 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 40,000 page views a day on average). It took us just 35 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 50 minutes!

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.

Regards,

TCIII Admin

The Boomerang

As petroleum has become harder to find, it's become increasingly costly and dangerous to extract. Could aerial data-collection bots create a new boom in fossil fuels?

Full article 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 big 71,000!!!!

There were approximately 1.4 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 47,000 page views a day on average). It took us just 31 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 44 minutes!

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.

Regards,

TCIII Admin

From gizmag

 ADAM WILLIAMS SEPTEMBER 16, 2015

Foster + Partners has drawn upon its considerable experience designing airports to conceive a Droneport for Rwanda. Gimmicky-sounding name notwithstanding, the ambitious project could save lives if successful. Working alongside École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, and Afrotech, among others, the aim is for delivery drones to fly out from the hub and travel up to 100 km (62 miles) to take medical and other urgent supplies to where they're needed.

Paved roads and other infrastructure aren't always available in rural areas of Africa, making it very difficult to quickly deliver medical supplies to those who need them most. Foster + Partners, along with its collaborators, aims to overcome this issue with two parallel drone delivery networks, the Red Line and Blue Line.

The Red Line will operate smaller drones for medical and emergency supplies, while the larger-capacity Blue Line drones are planned for electronics and e-commerce, hopefully subsidizing the Red Line network. Though the idea sounds rather blue-sky, we already know that Amazon, Flirtey, GeoPost, Google and others have all been looking into delivery by drone, so perhaps it's possible.

The Droneport will offer the remote aircraft a safe place to take off and land, and serve as a manufacturing center for the drones themselves. It will also include a health clinic, digital fabrication shop, post and courier room, and an e-commerce trading hub. All of which are intended to help generate local employment.

Full article here

If you're going to see the Pope, leave your drones at home.

From CNN Money

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a statement Tuesday reminding Papal visitors and residents that drones would not be permitted anywhere in the cities of Washington D.C., New York or Philadelphia during the Pope's visit.

The ban also extends to surrounding communities.

"Anyone flying a drone within the designated restricted areas may be subject to civil and criminal charges," said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta.

The FAA said flying a drone "anywhere Pope Francis will visit is against the law."

The ban extends to all unmanned aircraft, including radio-controlled model aircraft, and is in effect during the Pope's visit from September 22 through September 27.

Prior to this ban, drones were banned only in Philadelphia under a ban issued in mid-August.

Full article here

by OpenROV

After four years designing and piloting underwater drones, we've taken everything we've learned and completely re-imagined what an underwater drone could be. Trident has a unique design that combines the versatility and control of an ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) and the efficiency of an AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle). It can fly in long, straight survey lines called "transects" as well as perform delicate maneuvers in tight spaces, all while maintaining a sleek and powerful form factor.

Trident is easy to use and comes ready to go. Most importantly, it is incredibly fun to fly. (Flying really is the best term, because that's exactly what it feels like when you're piloting.)

We've designed Trident to be ultra portable and ultra durable. The form factor is small enough to fit in a backpack or fit under an airplane seat. The side panels are overmolded with a strong, rubber coating, which gives it protection from underwater obstacles as well as rough handling when being transported.

Depth: Capable of 100m (will ship with a 25m tether - longer tethers will be sold separately)
Top Speed: 2 m/s 
Run Time: 3 hours

The data connection to Trident is a major evolution from the connection set up of the original OpenROV kit. It uses a neutrally buoyant tether to communicate to a towable buoy on the surface (radio waves don't travel well in water) and the buoy connects to the pilot using a long range WiFi signal. Using a wireless towable buoy greatly increases the practical range of the vehicle while doing transects and search patterns since a physical connection between the vehicle and the pilot doesn't need to be maintained. You can connect to the buoy and control Trident using a tablet or laptop from a boat or from the shore.

Full Kickstarter project here

By Ahiza Garcia   @ahiza_garcia

It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a drone.

The Federal Aviation Administration approved a fleet of 324 commercial drones -- the largest fleet ever OK'd at one time.

Measure, the company that owns the drones, said in its petition to the FAA that the drones would be used for "aerial data acquisition."

According to the FAA, commercial drones are commonly used in movie making, "precision agriculture" and real estate photography.

Related: Drones banned during Pope's visit to Philadelphia

Measure provides its services to companies in several industries including agriculture, disaster relief and insurance, infrastructure and energy. The company says its drones can be used to monitor pipelines and aid in search and rescue operations.

Among the companies using Measure's drones are Boeing (BA), IBM (IBM, Tech30), UPS (UPS), the American Red Cross and the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Measure compared the use of drones to satellites. With drones, the company said, visual images are better and the data is collected in real time.

The FAA has approved over 1,000 commercial drone requests. Measure's approval far exceeds the others; the company said the next largest was for a fleet of about 20 drones.

Measure said it is the first Washington, D.C.-based company to get FAA approval to use drones commercially.

Full article here Measure