It looks like even parents are getting in on the drone phenomenon to see what their kids are up to!

Regards,

TCIII ArduRover2 Developer

By Evan Ackerman

IEEE SPECTRUM

There's been a bunch of drone stuff going on this week, and we thought that it might be easiest for you (and for us) to toss it all at you at once. It's sort of like Video Friday, except Drone News Thursday. And no, this will not be a recurring feature (I hope), so enjoy it while it lasts.

The more drones there are flying around over our heads, the more likely it is that some of those drones will, for whatever reason, fall out of the sky. This is bad for the drones, but probably worse for anyone directly underneath them.

Drone maker DJI has come up with a drone-mounted parachute deploying system that can drop your expensive aerial investment gently (ish) to the ground in the event of an emergency:

Here are the specs we've been able to dig up on the DJI DropSafe (which hasn't been officially released yet):

• Compatible with DJI S1000, S800 EVO, and S800 systems
• Compatible with DJI A2 and WooKong-M flight control systems
• Supports command inputs from RC transmitters
• An independent RC control channel is reserved for parachute deployment. Additionally, a backup battery safeguards the system, so if the main battery fails, users can still deploy the parachute manually.
• Automatically cuts off motor power when parachute is deployed

• Payload – Speed of descent
• 3 kg – 4.4 m/s
• 6 kg – 5.6 m/s
• 9 kg – 6.8 m/s
• 12 kg – 8.6 m/s
• 15 kg – 11.7 m/s

Important: The DJI DropSafe parachute is designed to minimize damage to equipment in the event of an accident. However, no guarantee can be made that all damage will be prevented. Use with caution.

The chute is reusable, and the entire system weighs about 550 grams. It'll deploy itself in half a second, which makes it effective at altitudes as low as 6 meters.

"Coming soon," whatever that means.

Article here: DJI DropSafe

From the SUAS Feed

Earlier this week a pilot from Idaho was preparing to begin a spray run through a field. Barely visible ahead of him was a small stationary object. He decided it must be a kite since a bird would not remain motionless. As he neared the object, it rapidly shot straight up. The pilot took evasive action but it passed so close to the airplane that he was unsure if it had missed the aircraft and spray system. It was close enough for him to be able to identify the make and model of the quad-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). He did not see the vehicle again as he finished the field but he did see the suspected operator/pilot in a car near the field. When he went to the next field, the car followed him where he observed the car’s occupant taking pictures with a hand-held camera.

Full article here: UAV near miss with crop duster

By Colin Jeffrey

With the number of multi-rotor drone concepts competing for a narrow market share, you really need a unique selling point if you want to get your project off the ground. In the case of the developers of the Cargo Unmanned Air System (UAS), their point of difference is to claim a massive 60 kg (132 lb) lift capacity for their proof of concept, with the promise of an eventual production unmanned aerial vehicle that can carry payloads of up to 400 kg (880 lb) with automated "sense and avoid" capability.

The UAS team envisage that items such as mail and parcels, food and water, or even medical supplies and emergency equipment could all be delivered more quickly and securely than is possible with ground transport. As such, they argue that the increasing overcrowding on highways could be avoided using such a system but, more importantly, they believe that in emergency situations such as floods where existing road infrastructure has been damaged or is otherwise impassable, their UAS could be deployed to deliver medical supplies or food to stranded people.

Full article here: Cargo UAS

Government Relations

The AMA would like to thank each of our members who has taken the time to respond to the FAA's interpretation of the Special Rule for Model Aircraft, released June 23. This action alert was issued to the entire AMA membership, partnering organizations, and aeromodeling media requesting immediate response to the interpretation. The goal is to notify the FAA through public comment that this rule significantly impacts the entire aeromodeling community and that this community is resolute and committed to protecting the hobby.

After the action alert was sent, members of the AMA leadership team met with the FAA senior management team to discuss our disappointment and requests for modification to the interpretation. Additional information about the requested FAA response will be released through email tomorrow. We ask that you check your spam settings to ensure you are receiving emails from the AMA, and that you share the email with anyone who may have interest in this matter.

Full article here:AMA

The Agribotix quadcopter in action in Ikh Nart Nature Reserve in Mongolia.

This Agribotix blog post addresses the rapidly evolving use of UAVs in the agriculture industry and how UAVs can significantly improve American agriculture's productivity and income.

Posted by Emcee Grady on the Sparkfun website

Guest post written by Daniel McKinnon from Agribotix

While dozens of industries are rapidly adopting the commercial use of UAVs, many analysts have identified agriculture as the largest potential market. However, many unanswered questions remain as to specifically how a UAV would help a farmer’s bottom line. Agribotix has spent the last year beginning to answer these questions and, given our dedication to open source and publishing our progress, we thought it would be helpful to share our findings with the SparkFun community.

Full article here: Agribotix

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 55,000!!!!

There were approximately 1.9 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 63,000 page views a day on average). It took us just 26 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 37 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

A 3-D-printed drone created by engineers from the University of Sheffield's Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.

By James O'Toole  @jtotoole

Want to be the proud owner of a brand-new drone? Pretty soon, all you'll need is a 3-D printer.

Researchers in the United Kingdom successfully printed a working drone earlier this year. It took them less than 24 hours to make it.

The vehicle, unveiled in March, is a remote-controlled glider about five feet wide that weighs just over four pounds and is composed of nine separate pieces that snap together.

Why do we need 3-D printed drones?

The team at Sheffield University says that in the future, the project could have applications from package deliveries to intelligence-gathering to search-and-rescue, with users able to tailor the vehicles to their own particular needs. The low production cost of the plastic drone "might lead to the printing of 3-D unmanned aircraft that could be disposable and sent on one-way flights," the researchers said.

Full article here: 3D Printed Drones

Gordon M. Goldstein

This blog post may seem a little off topic at first, however Open Source requires Open Communication to maintain a steady flow of information exchange between Developers and Users. According to this article in this month's Atlantic magazine, that may not be the case:

Yet all of this growth and increasing connectedness, which can seem both effortless and unstoppable, is now creating enormous friction, as yet largely invisible to the average surfer. It might not remain that way for much longer. Fierce and rising geopolitical conflict over control of the global network threatens to create a balkanized system—what some technorati, including Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, have called “the splinternet.” “I’m the most optimistic person I know on almost every topic,” the Internet entrepreneur Marc Andreessen recently said in a public interview, and “I’m incredibly concerned.” Andreessen said it is an “open question” whether the Internet five years from now “will still work the way that it does today.”

Full article here: How regional networks may replace the World Wide Web

This picture does not necessarily represent the sUAS used in this incident.

By Julie Balise

A sunbather on Virginia Beach claims she was sexually harassed by a drone, which she says was being used to spy on women.

In a post on Reddit describing the incident earlier this week, the woman wrote she was relaxing at the beach with her mother when she heard a whirring noise and noticed a remote-controlled aircraft nearby. She resumed napping.

The woman then noticed the drone was flying very close to female beach-goers and had a camera attached to it, according to her Reddit post. After the device hovered close to her and her mother, the woman said she located the men controlling it and approached them. She told them the device was “seriously creepy.” One responded, “It isn’t going to hurt you,” according to her Reddit post.

Full article here: Drone Harassment

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 53,000!!!!

There were approximately 1.9 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 63,000 page views a day on average). It took us just 24 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 35 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 picture above is representative of the R/C remotely piloted model aircraft that was described in other articles concerning the near miss incident.

A Federal Aviation Administration official warned this week about the dangers of even small unmanned aircraft, pointing specifically to a recent close call involving a drone and commercial airliner that could have caused "catastrophic" results.

Then, Williams segued to a pilot's recent report of "a near midair collision" with a drone near the airport in Tallahassee, Florida. He did not specify who the pilot worked for and what she was flying. As to the drone, the pilot said that it appeared to be small, camouflaged, "remotely piloted" and about 2,300 feet up in the air at the time of the incident.

"The pilot said that the UAS was so close to his jet that he was sure he had collided with it," Williams said. "Thankfully, inspection to the airliner after landing found no damage. But this may not always be the case."

Full article and video here: Near Miss

By Brian Benchoff

The Raspberry Pi has been around for a while now, and while many boards that hope to take the Pi’s place at the top of the single board ARM Linux food chain, not one has yet succeeded. Finally, there may be a true contender to the throne. It’s called the HummingBoard, and packs a surprising amount of power and connectivity into the same size and shape as the venerable Raspberry Pi.

The HummingBoard uses a Freescale i.MX6 quad core processor running at 1GHz with a Vivante GC2000 GPU. There’s 2GB of RAM, microSD card slot, mSATA connector, Gigabit Ethernet, a BCM4329 WiFi and Bluetooth module, a real-time clock, and IR receiver. There’s also all the usual Raspberry Pi flair, with a 26 pin GPIO connector, CSI camera connector, DSI LCD connector,  stereo out, as well as the usual HDMI and analog video.

Full article here: HummingBoard

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 52,000!!!!

There were approximately 1.9 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 63,000 page views a day on average). It took us just 23 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 33 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

Are you ready for National Robotics Week 2014? The fifth annual National Robotics Week event will be held April 5-13, 2014. RoboWeek 2013 was amazing and 2014 promises to be even better! Activities can be small, large, and everything in between. Check out our activity ideas below, think about what your group might like to do and help make 2014 our best year ever. Learn more here: National Robotics Week

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 51,000!!!!

There were approximately 1.8 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 60,000 page views a day on average). It took us just 22 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 32 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 ice caves of Alaska are virtually impenetrable for most explorers - but for a drone,  they are easy to get in (and out) of.

A team of filmmakers took their quadcopter to a remote series of caves to create this incredible footage of the area rarely seen by humans.

The team was able to fly through channels in the ice to gain entry to caves, and fly high above the breathtaking terrain to show the scales of the ice caves.

Full article here: Drone Explorer