Lifeboat Foundation

Hermeus’ audacious plan to build a passenger plane able to travel at Mach 5 is a longshot, but it’s won Pentagon backing.

Earlier this month, a curved aluminum skeleton 40 feet long sat waiting in Hermeus’ cavernous Atlanta factory. It was the prototype of a drone called Quarterhorse. It will never fly. Instead, it’s scheduled for ground-testing starting in September. Hermeus CEO AJ Piplica and his cofounders believe it’s the first step on a long road to an audacious goal: building a plane capable of carrying 20 passengers at hypersonic speed — five times faster than sound, or 3,850 miles per hour.

Imagine New York to Paris in 90 minutes. Quite an upgrade from the seven-and-a-half hours of a… More.

A tiny little winged drone can soar with close to zero throttle, thanks to an impressive algorithm that responds to changing winds.

A great video if you have 8 min to spare.

Continue reading “How Jetoptera’s Bladeless Propulsion System Works” »

Imagine a person on the ground guiding an airborne drone that harnesses its energy from a laser beam, eliminating the need for carrying a bulky onboard battery.

That is the vision of a group of University of Colorado at Boulder scientists from the Hayward Research Group.

In a new study, the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering researchers have developed a novel and resilient photomechanical material that can transform light energy into mechanical work without heat or electricity, offering innovative possibilities for energy-efficient, wireless and remotely controlled systems. Its wide-ranging potential spans across diverse industries, including robotics, aerospace and biomedical devices.

A new drone flyover of Gigafactory Texas shows that Tesla Cybertrucks are now coming out of the factory in numbers.

If Tesla sticks to its latest production timeline for the Cybertruck, we are just weeks away from the start of production and the first deliveries to employees.

We have been following closely to determine if that’s possible and now we get one of the best indications to date.

The device was equipped with infrared technology.

A police drone equipped with infrared capabilities has risen as a hero in the search for a missing person with dementia that disappeared from a Delta hospital on July 29. Delta is a city located in British Columbia, Canada.

This is according to a report by Global News published on Wednesday.

Continue reading “Police use drone to find missing person with dementia” »

A three-member team spent four years building the low-latency bot which responds faster than the time it takes for an eye to blink.

Shandong, China-based Qibot Robot Company claims to have built the world’s fastest boxer bot. Standing over six feet (1.9 m) tall, the bot is a single-handed robot that can be teleoperated and has a response delay time of just 12 milliseconds, which according to the company, makes it the world’s fastest, the South China Morning Post.

Continue reading “Meet Qibbot: World’s fastest human-controlled fighting bot” »

BEIJING (AP) — China imposed restrictions Monday on exports of long-range civilian drones, citing Russia’s war in Ukraine and concern that drones might be converted to military use.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government is friendly with Moscow but says it is neutral in the 17-month-old war. It has been stung by reports that both sides might be using Chinese-made drones for reconnaissance and possibly attacks.

Export controls will take effect Tuesday to prevent use of drones for “non-peaceful purposes,” the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement. It said some drone exports still will be allowed.

A new solar-powered high-altitude drone has successfully navigated a stratospheric test, opening the door to a new set of possibilities for unmanned vehicles, not least in modern warfare.

The PHASA-35 solar and battery-powered unmanned aerial system reached an altitude of 66,000 feet during a 24-hour test flight launched from New Mexico in June, British defense giant BAE Systems said in mid-July.

The stratospheric test, which comes after the system’s maiden flight back in 2020, “marks a significant milestone” in the development program started in 2018, BAE said in a press release.