Drones & UAVs News & Discussions

[weatheriscool]

Quick and efficient bicopter drone could dethrone its quadcopter cousins
By Ben Coxworth
April 03, 2025

Consumer drones are all just slight variations on the quadcopter design … right? Well no, not any longer. The Falcon Mini is a two-propeller "bicopter" which is claimed to be nimbler, quieter, and more energy-efficient than its four-prop counterparts.
Currently the subject of an Indiegogo campaign, the Falcon Mini is made by drone manufacturer ZeroZero Robotics. The firm also makes the popular HOVERAir line of consumer quadcopters, and previously brought us the original V-Copter Falcon bicopter. The Falcon Mini is essentially a scaled-down version of the latter.

https://newatlas.com/drones/zerozero-ro ... ter-drone/

[weatheriscool]

Flying-squirrel-inspired drone uses extendable wings ... to STOP flying
By Ben Coxworth
April 25, 2025

Even the nimblest of quadcopters still struggle to halt their lateral momentum when moving fast, limiting their maneuverability. An experimental drone addresses that problem in a bio-inspired fashion, by extending flying-squirrel-like membranous wings as needed.

Developed by Dohyeon Lee, Jun-Gill Kang and Soohee Han at South Korea's Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), the miniature aircraft flies just like a regular quadcopter most of the time. It incorporates the usual quad layout, with a central electronics-containing body surrounded by four propeller-tipped arms.

Located between the front and rear arms on each side, however, is a flying-squirrel-inspired silicone-membrane wing. Those wings are kept folded in when cruising, allowing the drone to stay relatively streamlined.

https://newatlas.com/drones/flying-squi ... red-drone/

[weatheriscool]

American-made drone smashes performance metrics at Chinese prices
https://assets.newatlas.com/dims4/defau ... -2-min.png
https://newatlas.com/drones/sifly-q12-american-drone/

[weatheriscool]

American-made drone smashes performance metrics at Chinese prices

https://newatlas.com/drones/sifly-q12-american-drone/

[caltrek]

Autonomous Robotic Organizations for Marine Operations
May 6, 2025

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) In 2022, what is known as the observation pyramid, with a research satellite included, was tested for the first time in Svalbard. This is where researchers use small satellites, subsea robots and everything in between to make simultaneous observations and measurements.

Previously there had been several successful tests with various combinations of underwater robots, surface vessels and aircraft carried out in collaboration with national and international partners.
…
But the launch of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) first research satellite in 2022 made this observational pyramid complete.

The observation pyramid is based on the use of different robot platforms to focus on the same time and place to survey an ocean area: Autonomous underwater robots, an uncrewed surface vessel, an autonomous flying drone and NTNU's research satellite that collects ocean data were in operation.

The observation pyramid operates from below sea level and all the way out into space, but all the platforms have the same goal. The goal of the operation in Svalbard was to map the spring bloom of algae in Kongsfjorden. Now the researchers are taking a step further.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1082801

[weatheriscool]

Exclusive: How this new American drone flies 4X longer than others
By Loz Blain
May 08, 2025
https://newatlas.com/drones/how-sifly-r ... ed-drones/

SiFly says its drones fly 4X longer, 10X farther, 10X quieter and carry 5X more payload than the competition, while manufacturing in the USA at China-competitive prices. And they don't need parachutes. We asked how... Here's the secret sauce!

SiFly's claims are absolutely outrageous. Multirotor drones have been around in numbers for more than 10 years now, Chinese companies like DJI have had a decade to evolve and optimize these relatively simple airframes. How can a startup waltz into this space and find 400-1,000% gains in critical performance factors like flight endurance?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and Chief Strategy Officer David Mazar tells me over a video call that the SiFly team has been out and about presenting that evidence to people in person, most recently at a law enforcement drone event in Ogden, Utah this week.

[weatheriscool]

DJI looks to push creativity boundaries with triple-camera Mavic 4 Pro
By Paul Ridden
May 13, 2025
https://newatlas.com/drones/dji-mavic-4-pro/

A couple of years ago, DJI was the first drone maker to launch a flyer sporting a triple camera array. The follow up mounts the Hasselblad-led cameras to a 360-degree gimbal – allowing creators to "push their content to new levels."

The Mavic 4 Pro's triple camera system offers "aerial narrators" three focal lengths to play with – 28 mm, 70 mm and 168 mm – for creative flexibility with one tap on the controller. The trio is also mounted to a new Infinity Gimbal that enables full 360-degree rotation and 70 degrees up or down, making for "unprecedented angles" during capture.

With its 100-megapixel four thirds image sensor, the drone's Hasselblad main camera is the star of the show, promising sharp, detailed captures that benefit from the Swedish imaging titan's Natural Color Solution while its F2.0 to F11 aperture caters for low-light videography.

[weatheriscool]

Flying robot morphs in mid-air to land and roll on wheels
By Ben Coxworth
May 29, 2025

Imagine a robot that can transform between "flying drone" and "wheeled rover" configurations. It could potentially be quite useful, but only if it works in real-world conditions. The ATMO bot was designed to do just that, by performing its transformation in mid-air.

Its name an acronym for Aerially Transforming Morphobot, ATMO was created by a team of engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The device builds upon the technology utilized in a previous Caltech robot, the M4 (Multi-Modal Mobility Morphobot).

That particular robot flew like a regular quadcopter drone when airborne, with its four shrouded propellers spread out horizontally. Once it landed, those props folded inward, until they sat at a downwards right angle relative to the rest of the robot's body. They then served as motorized wheels, with the shrouds forming the rubber-treaded rims.

https://newatlas.com/robotics/atmo-flyi ... ing-robot/

[weatheriscool]

AI-enabled control system helps autonomous drones stay on target in uncertain environments
https://techxplore.com/news/2025-06-ai- ... -stay.html
by Adam Zewe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

An autonomous drone carrying water to help extinguish a wildfire in the Sierra Nevada might encounter swirling Santa Ana winds that threaten to push it off course. Rapidly adapting to these unknown disturbances inflight presents an enormous challenge for the drone's flight control system.

To help such a drone stay on target, MIT researchers developed a new, machine learning-based adaptive control algorithm that could minimize its deviation from its intended trajectory in the face of unpredictable forces like gusty winds.

The study is published on the arXiv preprint server.

Unlike standard approaches, the new technique does not require the person programming the autonomous drone to know anything in advance about the structure of these uncertain disturbances.

Instead, the control system's artificial intelligence model learns all it needs to know from a small amount of observational data collected from 15 minutes of flight time.

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[Lilymoon]

Insta360 8K drone immerses you in an alternate reality of human flight




Over the past wee while, immersive actioncam company Insta360 has been incubating a new camera-drone startup called Antigravity. Now the first flyer has been unveiled, a folding aerial adventurer capable of grabbing immersive 8K 360-degree footage.

"We didn't want to just build another drone," said BC Nie, Head of Marketing at Antigravity. "We wanted to create an entirely new way to fly. A1 is the first step in reimagining flight as something anyone can enjoy – something that is safe, intuitive, expressive, and endlessly creative."

The press materials don't go into too much detail, but the A1 works with a wireless hand controller and Vision goggles. The pistol-grip trigger remote offers an intuitive point-to-fly user experience, and features a bunch of buttons, rockers and switches plus a knurled wheel for control. There are three flight modes marked C, N and S – which could translate to a smooth cinematic mode, another for "normal" and one that unlocks the drone's sporty nature.

https://newatlas.com/drones/insta360-an ... era-drone/

[weatheriscool]

American-made drone snags Guinness World Record for longest flight
By Michael Franco
August 25, 2025

https://newatlas.com/drones/guinness-record-drone/
For a drone company that just broke cover in May, SiFly has certainly gone from strength to strength in 2025. Its latest achievement came on Orville Wright's birthday, when the company's Q12 drone soared into the most famous record book in the world.

Clocking a flight that lasted 3 hours, 11 minutes, and 53 seconds, Sifly officially nabbed the Guinness World Record for the longest electric-powered drone flight in the 5-20 kg weight class on July 26, 2025 at Amaral Ranches in California. That's about an hour longer than the previous benchmark, said the company in a press release.

The company's flagship Q12 drone attained the record after flying in a 600-meter-wide (1,969-foot-wide) orbit at about 50 meters (164 ft) in altitude autonomously at around 50 km/h (31 mph), reported Flying magazine. You can see it showing off in the following video from SiFly.

[weatheriscool]

Uber is trying drone delivery again

Uber will test using drones for Uber Eats deliveries in some U.S. markets by the end of this year, part of a new partnership with Israeli startup Flytrex. The partnership will also include a small investment in Flytrex, though Uber told Bloomberg News the investment amount was not material.

The deal comes at a time when Uber has been re-engaging with some technologies that it used to develop in-house. Uber has been partnering with autonomous vehicle companies like Waymo to offer self-driving rides in cities like Atlanta, and it’s aiming to bring electric air taxis to its service in the next few years.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/18/uber- ... ery-again/

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

Lockheed Martin drone makes mission-saving decisions on its own
By David Szondy
December 09, 2025

https://newatlas.com/military/lockheed- ... on-making/
Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works has shown how combat drones can think on the fly with a demonstration of its AI-Driven Mission Contingency Management (AI/MCM) system that can adjust missions in the face of unforeseen events.

Without proper computer and software drones are only so much flying ironmongery. The advantage of such aircraft isn't that they can fly without a human pilot. They also need to be able to assess changing situations and make choices in order to fulfill their missions.

Installed in a Stalker XE Block 25 drone, the AI/MCM system consists of Lockheed Martin's Systems, Tactical applications, Autonomy/AI, and Rapid deployment (STAR.OS) AI integration platform that is designed to make the AI system interoperable with other AI systems and services, both new and old, for communications, data sharing, and collaboration. It also doesn't care if the systems are located in the air, on the ground, on the sea, or in space.

[wjfox]

[Lilymoon]

Floating drones stream light, water and sound in synchronized shows



Traditional fountains are all very well and good, but … they have a way of always staying in the same place, in the same configuration. Arivia is out to change that, with fleets of synchronized illuminated aquatic drones that shoot out water while playing music.

Designed and manufactured by Japanese company Spaceone Fukushima, Arivia is the recent recipient of an Innovation Award in the Drones category at CES 2026.



Each drone features a spherical above-surface section, a cylindrical underwater section, and a disc-shaped floatation ring in the middle. The whole shebang moves across the water's surface in any direction via four underwater thrusters.




As an added bonus, since they're already in the water anyways, the drones can gather water data such as temperature, turbidity and oxygen levels via onboard environmental sensors.

There's currently no word on when you might actually see Arivia drone fleets making appearances anywhere near you. For now, though, you can check them out in the following animated video.

https://newatlas.com/drones/arivia-aqua ... in-drones/