Origami drone that folds and dissolves itself (via Evan Ackerman/IEEE Spectrum)
Scientists, engineers, makers, and the US Navy have been hard at work making some of the most groundbreaking, chilling, and downright bizzare drones we’ve seen yet. Drone innovations are happening faster and faster. Here is a collection of the most recent, noteworthy drone innovations.
First, MIT is still alive and kicking and recently wowed a crowd with their origami drone that folds itself, walks, swims, and dissolves. This tiny drone (seen above) is only 1.7 cm long and is made of a polystyrene sheet. When started, the application of heat allows this drone to turn from a flat, sheet of polystyrene into a complex, origami, whatchamacallit. Then, the drone uses magnets to allow it to walk and even swim.
A neodymium magnet lies at the robot’s core and it uses 4 electromagnetic coils under the surface to attract and repel the magnet – allowing it to move. When you’re done having fun, you can dissolve the drone in an acetone bath and the only evidence will be a single magnet. MIT scientists are hoping that this robot can one day operatesurgeries within the body and then completely dissolve itself once the job is complete.
Department of Justice is going to enforce rules on federal agency drones (via Alamy)
A less groundbreaking, but more important piece of news is that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has FINALLY decided what drones can and can’t be used for. Not only have they published new rules for the use of federal drones, but they also have instated measures for keeping a closer eye on what departments like the FBI are doing with their drones.
I suppose the wild west of drone use is over for the FBI and citizens can hope to have a little more privacy because of it (if privacy exists in the age of wireless technology). The new rules dictate the freedoms that citizens have to engage in lawful and constitutionally supported activities like having a peaceful protest. Even in cases where the FBI thinks they have reasonable grounds for suspicion, they are supposed to get a warrant before launching a drone.
Drone operators and agencies are supposed to keep a log of every drone flight, and report this to the DOJ. Hopefully these regulations will be followed and fine-tuned as drones are used by more government agencies.
‘Sprite’ drone that is meant to be portable, useful, and withstand a beating (via Ascent AeroSystems via Kickstarter)
A new prosumer drone is in town and it plans to solve the two biggest problems with drones on the market: bulk and fragility. This creation by Acent AeroSystems is called the ‘Sprite’ and its featured in the picture above. It looks a lot like portable fan that you can get for .99 cents at any China bizarre, but don’t let the look fool you. It packs a surprising tech punch.
It is very portable, waterproof, and ding-proof. The wings are retractable and are designed to retract within half a second of hitting the ground to ensure no wing damage occurs during landing. It also has a built in 1080p camera to capture aerial feed. Add-ons include GoPro compatibility and First-person view compatibility for a premium cost. The Sprite raised over $406,000 on Kickstarter, so be prepared to see this thing in action in the coming year.
Hydrogen powered drone with 4 hours of flight time (via Horizon Energy Systems)
While the Sprite only has a flight time of about 12 minutes, the drone featured above is breaking records with a 4-hour flight time that has yet to be seen before. This drone, created by Horizon Energy Systems is also powered by Hydrogen gas, which makes it novel and gives it its energy efficiency. The tubes featured on the robot hold the hydrogen gas that is used as fuel by a lithium polymer hybrid fuel cell. The drone weighs about 11 pounds and can carry about 2.2 pounds in flight. They are still in the prototyping phase, but hope to be up and running later this year.
Smallest Quadcopter - SKEYE (via TRNDlabs)
While the hydrogen powered drone gives professionals bang for their buck, this new drone is directed at consumers who need little to no experience to get this drone flying figure eights. The smallest quadcopter is not on the market from SKEYE retailing at only $34.99. It weights half an ounce and measures at a square 1.57 x 1.57 inches. It is meant for tricks with a 6 axis control that enables it to easily perform flips, figure eights, banked turns and more. It only runs for about 7-10 minutes per charge but works directly out of the box. Seems like it could make a very fun toy... for 7-10 minutes.
US Navy preparing for potential drone hacks (via FedBizOpps.gov and AP Photo/Steve Helber)
The US Navy has recently released a plea to private companies for help in developing hack-resistant and hack-proof software to prevent enemies from using military drones to get anything from location data to using the drones to fire on their own troops. Needless to say, this is a very good idea. The US Navy won’t start sifting through proposals until May 2016, so developers have about a year to present their proposal to the Navy. If you think you have a good idea, start thinking about submitting your proposal. No news yet about who has submitted proposals so far, but more updates to come about strategies to secure military drones from hackers.
US Navy Cicada Drone (via Naval Research Laboratory)
A new prototype of the CICADA drone was released on ‘Lab Day’ for the Department of Defense. US Naval scientists have been working on these drones since 2006, and they had a test flight in 2011. Now, they have an even smaller and more tech packed version.
Their CICADA drone, aka Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft, is designed to be a disposable tech that can detect where enemy vehicles are coming from and it can also eavesdrop into enemy conversations. Rather than utilizing propellers or engines, it simply glides silently through the air using old fashioned paper airplane ‘technology.’ So it will basically do its job until it runs out of battery or hits the ground. A close up shot of the CICADA can be seen in the photo below.
The CICADA can fit in the palm of your hand and has been touted as a ‘phone with wings’ by the Agence France-Presse. If you take a good look at the new disposable drone above, you begin to see why. The body basically houses as many sensors as possible (including microphones, air pressure gauge, humidity sensor and more), and wings have just been attached to make it aerodynamic enough to glide in the sky for a while when dropped from a plane or balloon.
Currently, this protoype costs around $1000 to produce, but Navy scientists argue that they could mass produce them for about $250 each. In future, US defense agencies foresee unleashing these baby drones from planes to survey and eavesdrop on enemy troops. Of course, with a drone that’s expected to be cheap to produce and will eventually (literally) fall into enemy hands, I don’t know how long of an advantage US troops will have using this technology.
On the home front, weather forecasters are wanting to use these CICADA’s to help them understand tornados better by utilizing their sensors for air pressure, temperature, and humidity.
Dogs testing drones to help search and rescue missions (via Sky News)
On a different note, the National Search and Rescue Dog Association (NSARDA) in Kent, England is using drones to save people’s lives – at least they are currently planning field tests.
The NSARDA got a drone donated from O2 (a telecom service provider in the UK). They are using the drone in tests to survey areas very quickly to allow them to foresee obstacles and locate people in search and rescue missions.
Then, they can quickly decide where and how they want to use their search and rescue dogs to locate and save victims. They are also hoping that using a combination of drones and search and rescue dogs will help them find missing persons – of which the UK has over 200,000 people reported missing each year.
Swiss mail delivery drones (via Matternet)
Finally, the most bizarre way in which drones are being used is to deliver the mail. While there have been many talks about companies, like Amazon, wanting to use drones to deliver mail, Switzerland is actually going to do it!
They have just contracted a company called Matternet that has been creating mail delivery drones for some time. The company used drones to delivery medicine in Haiti two years ago. Now, they have developed their Matternet ‘One’ robot to deliver up to 2.2 lbs of mail up to 12 miles in a single charge. I imagine that postal workers carry a lot more weight than 2.2 lbs, so these drones will only be used to deliver medicine, documents, and parts for the time being. But if these pilot program in Switzerland is successful, we can expect drones to be delivering our mail sometime soon.
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