Quadcopters with thermal imagery cameras can help detect vicious mini-mines that often kill or maim children.
- By Jeremy Hsu on December 28, 2018
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Category: drones – Page 120
It isn’t unreasonable to think of drones as pesky technological nuisances. Our modern digital ecosystem regularly infringes on traditional notions of privacy and bombards our limited attention spans with stimuli. A swarm of drones hovering overhead seems like the physical manifestation of these intrusions and distractions. But we shouldn’t swat them away just yet. Drones still have practical utility and the potential to change industries.
An Expanding Market
The appeal of drones in the consumer market is obvious. They can capture video footage from exciting angles, serving the vanity of a population obsessed with self-documentation. Beyond that, drones also have commercial and civil government applications that include firefighting, farming, construction, deliveries, and insurance claims. According to Goldman Sachs Research, this contributes to a $100 billion market opportunity between 2016 and 2020.
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Every day at around 4 p.m., the creeeek criikkk of stretched packing tape echoes through Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen’s sprawling neighborhood of hardware stores. Shopkeepers package up the day’s sales—selfie sticks, fidget spinners, electric scooters, drones—and by 5, crowds of people are on the move at the rapid pace locals call Shenzhen sudu, or “Shenzhen speed,” carting boxes out on motorcycles, trucks, and—if it’s a light order—zippy balance boards. From Huaqiangbei the boxes are brought to the depots of global logistics companies and loaded onto airplanes and cargo ships. In the latter case they join 24 million metric tons of container cargo going out every month from Shekou harbor—literally “snake’s mouth,” the world’s third-busiest shipping port after Shanghai and Singapore.
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Although quadcopter drones show promise as a means of exploring hazardous environments such as disaster sites, they do have one drawback – they’re wide, limiting their ability to squeeze through tight spaces. An experimental new drone addresses that problem, by folding into different shapes while in flight.
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Five years ago, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos predicted that by now we would all be getting packages delivered by drones. Despite numerous trials and pilots around the globe, we’re still waiting. Meanwhile other companies have been nipping at Amazon’s heels, including Google’s parent company Alphabet. Its Project X drones started delivering burritos to customers in Australia’s Capital Territory last year, and has now announced that folks in Finland can look forward to package deliveries by air from early 2019.
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T/
Audi, Airbus and Italdesign are all working together on an electric “flying taxi” concept and they are now starting to test the vehicle.
The concept was first unveiled earlier this year at the Geneva Auto Show.
They now have a more refined working prototype, but it’s still a 1:4 scale model – though it is flying and driving at Amsterdam Drone Week.
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More than an ordinary aerial drone but not quite a satellite, a huge solar-powered airplane with three tails and wings wider than a jumbo jet’s will soon be taking to the skies.
Odysseus, developed by Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences of Manassas, Virginia, is one of the largest unpiloted aircraft ever built — and one of the lightest. It has a 243-foot wingspan but weighs less than a small car, the company says. Its six electrically powered propellers will be driven by energy from hundreds of solar panels that cover the aircraft’s exterior or from banks of rechargeable batteries on board, depending on the available sunlight.
With a top speed of 100 miles an hour, Odysseus won’t be very fast. But it’s designed to soar to altitudes above 60,000 feet and stay aloft for months at a time.
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