One of the cool features of the Mission Planner is that you can load and save configuration files. So you can not only have different files for different aircraft, but also share them with others.

This is particularly handy for common airframes. Once someone…

From IEEE Spectrum:

In a visit today to Carnegie Mellon…

I just got the new Hobbyking Bixler, their newest EasyStar clone, and I'm very impressed. I haven't flown it yet, but based on the design I think it's the best Easystar clone out there yet. (And I've tested them ALL!)



It's available as a kit, a RTF with a 4 channel radio, and an…

"Drones are Ready for Takeoff" from the June issue of Smithsonian. Many of the usual suspects and a good bit of journalistic naivete, but worth reading. It focuses on Aerovel Corp, a small company in…

It's the latest Electric Tethered Observation Platform from Israel Aerospace Industries, photographed at the Paris Air Show, according to km2804.

Basically a long…

Check out the firmware loading screen from the latest Mission Planner (1.013). Have you ever seen anything more beautiful??

Yes, APM is the first autopilot in history to support every kind of flying machine out there! (We already covered lighter-than-air with Blimpduino). Thanks to the great work of team leader…

From a piece in today's New York Times on the push for more and better military microdrones:

There are some 4,800 Ravens in operation in the Army, although plenty get lost. One American service member in Germany recalled how five soldiers…

The results are in, and we have some great reports from the AUVSI student competition. A Paparazzi-powered UAV came in first, and APM made its best showing ever, with APM-powered UAVs in  7th, 15th and 16th place.

Dan Strider…

From News 3 in New Zealand, news that engineers are using a Parrot AR.Drone to inspect the inside of the Christchurch cathedral damaged in the earthquake:

It's a…

An amateur/educational group called Quest For Stars plans to lift a glider to the edge of space with a balloon to film the last Space Shuttle launch. In future flights, the glider will be then released and navigate home, broadcasting FPV video the whole way. It appears that they're using standard Eagletree and…

Another day, another spectacular upgrade of the APM Mission Planner by Michael Oborne. Today's cool new features in v1.09 includes datalogging, so you can record your missions from the ground and replay them for analysis afterwards. No need to download logs from the board itself; just click one…

The DIY Drones telemetry kit, which proved more popular than we were ready for and quickly went out of stock when we released it back in April, is now back in stock. It now offered at…

A: They're both examples of "multi-agent AI scripting". MIT postdoc Frans Oliehoek has been developing some powerful methods for swarms of autonomous objects (software or hardware, like UAVs) to communicate with each other and distribute tasks by following simple policies. One of the simulations his colleagues have tested this on is the videogame Starcraft,  as shown in the demo above.

 …

Antonio Liska, who has won the Sparkfun AVC for two years with a homebuilt autopilot, is now selling a commercial version of that hardware.  It's called the "Goose" and it's just airplane-only at the moment and closed source, but it has impressive features:…

If you update to the latest Mission Planner (1.05) you'll see a cool new feature Michael Oborne has just added: integrated OSD video! Just select your video input device from your aircraft's camera feed from the Configuration screen (Planner tab) and it will replace the background of the artificial horizon on the GCS, turning it into a heads-up display instead, as shown in the…

Jason, Gigio and I just got back from a day of test flying four ArduCopters, which is the most we've ever had out at one time. These were of different designs, with different props, motors, ESCs, batteries, frames etc. The point was to try to see why some people have great-performing ArduCopters and others have issues. We assumed it was due to hardware differences, but we…

Gigio (udrones) has added a great tutorial to the manual on how to add a pan-tilt camera mount to ArduCopter using Hobbyking parts. Total cost: about $57. Perfect for a GoPro camera.

AC2 defaults to…

Gary Mortimer passes on sad news:

The Washington Post reports the death of Maynard Hill an inspiration to so many in the sUAS world. Our condolences to his family

Maynard Hill, a designer of model airplanes who secured a spot in aviation…