Bruce Crumley

South Korea is enthusiastically planning for the introduction of future advanced urban air activities using UAVs and air taxis to lift delivery trucks and cars into the skies. Now officials in the nation’s capital are preparing to use drones to better manage vehicles that will be left clogging Seoul’s streets.

Controversy over the construction of a reef-anchored judging stand is undermining excitement over the 2024 Summer Olympics’ surfing competition – only the second appearance of the sport in the quadrennial global gala’s history. Now a work-around solution is being forwarded by international officials, who propose using drones among other tech alternatives to provide scorers views needed for evaluating rides.

Officials in Ukraine have made a series of announcements on plans to dramatically increase drone production in the nation’s effort to drive out invading Russian forces, including a pledge to manufacture over a million first-person view (FPV) craft for attack and reconnaissance missions.

The largely productive year for the drone sector is drawing to a close with the less fortunate news that trailblazing North Carolina startup PrecisionHawk has filed for bankruptcy, and is shuttering the business.

Like the state itself, everything is really, really big in Texas – including the distances separating remote towns from teeming urban areas. Now Texas Tech University is moving to bridge those gaps that often undermine healthcare in more isolated locales by testing drone deliveries using Australian UAV company Swoop Aero craft.

Reports that Russia‘s armed forces are starting to claw away at the specific aerial advantage Ukraine has long held with its production and skilled use of small drones took on a significant footnote this month. The qualifier designates what’s described as the mass manufactured, inexpensive AQ 400 Scythe loitering munition – a UAV capable of 750-kilometer flights deep into occupied Crimea or Russia’s heartland, and created to shift the momentum of the war in Kyiv’s favor.

Manufacturer of high capability security and defense UAVs, Performance Drone Works (PDW) has announced its C100 heavy-lift C100 quadcopter has been named to the Blue sUAS list of drones approved for US government operation.

Drone fleet and airspace management tech specialist Aloft has announced the release of its new UAV flight planning tool Air Aware, an application the company says “effectively replaces the B4UFLY app.”

Global instant logistics leader Zipline will initiate its medical drone delivery activity in the UK by assuming a central role in an aerial network planning to serve over 30 hospitals and other healthcare facilities operated by northwest England’s regional unit of the National Health System (NHS).

Wing Aviation, one of the world’s leading operators of drone delivery services, has received additional authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) allowing the company to considerably broaden its use of beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights without ground observers in the Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX area – and, eventually, in scaling across the US.

Efforts to undermine the fortunes of the world’s leading drone maker DJI are about to bare a bumper crop fruit with legislative passage of a key defense bill that contains the National Security Drone Act of 2023, which blacklists aerial tech from China-based companies for use in official federal agency work. The wider package now awaits President Joe Biden’s signature.

New York’s Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research Alliance (NUAIR) announced a major expansion of its capabilities to prepare diversified drone and advanced air mobility (AAM) activity, with the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) approval to expand the organization’s beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flight zone to cover 240 square-miles.

As predicted when policies and budgets were passed to mend long neglected infrastructure across the US, the deployment of drones for inspection and restoration of public assets has increased dramatically. Yet another example of that is the work the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) will do in surveying its aging rail system using a newly-issued Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) waiver for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operation. 

The future of autonomous piloting has come at least two steps nearer with news that two breakthrough trial flights were completed by different aviation tech companies – including one whose systems permitted a cargo plane to fly with nobody in the cockpit.

Commercial drone systems developer Matternet says it has been selected to operate medical deliveries between Berlin hospitals and laboratories in a project that will involve the first ever beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) UAV flights over the German capital.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has introduced a digital space to enable exchange between stakeholders of future advanced air mobility (AAM) craft – from drones to air taxis – and act as a resource for interested members of the public who’ll ultimately be using their services. The question now is, will José and Jacques Q. Public actually consult the platform?

German air taxi developer Lilium has announced the passing of two major milestones with the production launch of its electric vertical takeoff and landing jet (eVTOL), and an agreement to explore the craft’s operation in partnership with the nation’s flag carrier airline, Lufthansa.

Efforts by Amazon to fulfill founder Jeff Bezo’s decade old vision of swiftly dispatching customer orders with a fleet of speedy, efficient delivery drones is facing yet another unexpected challenge with the news that the primary interlocutor in its contacts with the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA), Sean Cassidy, has left the company.

Ascendant drone tech company Quantum-Systems is extending its involvement with Ukraine – and the nation’s defense against invading Russian forces – with the establishment of a research and development center in the country’s tech incubator initiative, according to the Ministry of Digital Transformation in Kyiv.

The Texas city of Arlington is preparing to launch a trial using drones and robotic ground vehicles to deliver packages from a local food bank to recipient homes in a bid to reduce the number of vans – and emissions those produce – in transporting the vital parcels where they’re needed.

True to its reputation of using cutting-edge tech to produce equally state-of-the-art electric vehicles, Tesla has introduced a warehouse drone and robotic vehicle duo with astonishing capabilities to its Giga Berlin facility. True to the reputation of company CEO Elon Musk, however, the manner of communicating that news rather outstrips the development’s underlying import.