Através de um novo contrato com a Força Aérea Portuguesa, os drones AR5 da Tekever vão apoiar missões de longo alcance, incluindo a vigilância da Zona Económica Exclusiva (ZEE) de Portugal, podendo ser também utilizados em áreas como segurança costeira e proteção ambiental.
Reducing (or completely eliminating) the charge time for drones has been a continual area of research, with some advancements, such as quantum batteries showcased earlier this year, showing a lot of promise. Researchers at the Civil Aviation University of China have made a major breakthrough in laser-based OTA (Over The Air) charging that can convert energy at 38.94% efficiency.
According to a study published in Matter & Light, scientists from the Civil Aviation University of China are testing a lightweight receiver that can harvest energy from a laser beam sent from the ground. The system uses a perovskite laser cell-thermoelectric (PLC-TE) tandem device, which combines two methods of generating electricity. The perovskite layer converts laser energy into electricity, while the thermoelectric layer recovers some of the resulting heat and turns it into additional power. Its output increases as the temperature difference between the laser-facing side and the cooler side grows.
(Image credit: Matter & light)
The major challenge with this setup is that intense laser beams heat up the receivers to a blistering 80 to 90 degrees Celsius, degrading efficiency and causing damage to the aircraft itself. “That was much higher than we expected and made us realize that heat buildup was a far more serious problem than we had imagined,” explained Jianhua Han, the study's senior author.
To overcome this challenge, Han's team added special nanocrystals to the receiver. As the nanocrystals are poor heat conductors, it allows them to act as a thermal barrier and protect the perovskite and thermoelectric layers. The team also added air channels to the drone's wings. As the propellers spin, airflow passes through these channels and carries excess heat away, helping to keep the system cool. The combination of nanomaterials and aerodynamic cooling resulted in a respectable 38.49% energy conversion efficiency during testing, which is one of the highest reported for this class of technology.
While the system is yet to undergo outdoor flight tests, this breakthrough alone is a significant step toward practical continuous flight for drones. As Han noted, going from 1 to 100 will require solving complex tracking and safety challenges, but this research establishes an important starting point for the future of drones and UAVs.
The United States recently held Game of Drones, bringing together small drone manufacturers at Edwards Air Force Base for an event focused on the design, assembly, and flight testing of unmanned aircraft. The event was jointly organized by the Experimental Test Force at Edwards, part of the 412th Test Wing, and US-X, a recently established […]
As câmaras dos drones de vigilância K3 Scout, usados pelas forças especiais da Marinha britânica, tinham componentes de origem chinesa quem estavam a enviar dados para a China, obrigando o Ministério da Defesa a cortar a ligação à internet dos equipamentos.
HoverAir, makers of self-flying selfie drones, have just unveiled the HoverAir Versa, combining their existing aerial expertise with the convenience of a pocket camera. At its core, the Versa is a high-end stabilized pocket gimbal camera, like the DJI Osmo, but it can magnetically snap onto a drone body and transform into a cinematic selfie drone. It's designed to tackle two different product categories simultaneously, but with the same goal of making it as easy as possible to film yourself (or others).
The Versa is actually HoverAir's first-ever pocket camera. It features a three-axis gimbal, which means it can adjust for tilt, yawn, and pitch to make sure your footage turns out stable. Compared to other options on the market, no pocket camera offers more than two-axis stabilization. It has a rotating screen and the accompanying controls for the camera, along with RGB accent lighting that also works as a status indicator. Overall, it looks like a pretty run-of-the-mill, well-made pocket camera.
(Image credit: HoverAir on YouTube)
But the magic happens when you bring out the wings. A small, foldable drone body can magnetically attach to the camera unit via pogo pins located at the back of the device. Once connected, you just unfold the wings, gently tap the top, and it takes off right from your palm. There is no external controller needed because the device uses AI to track and follow you automatically. It has 10+ intelligent modes that can film you from any direction with AI-assisted framing, along with a neat 360° feature as well.
(Image credit: HoverAir on YouTube)
In this mode, called 3D Worlds, the drone flies around to snap pictures of the scene from different angles and composites them into a single 360° scene that can be explored and shared later. Technically, this would be the third audience the Versa is trying to cater to — the Insta360 crowd, though that's real-time 360° video recording that you can also generously manipulate in post, so not exactly comparable. Still, it's a neat trick, and we'll have to see how well HoverAir implements it.
We don't have a price or release date; just a bunch of teasers so far that say it's coming soon. As such, specs are also up in the air, but the company is touting class-leading performance with the best dynamic range in the category. From the promotional material, we can infer that it has a large lens, and the drone body looks very compact. If HoverAir's previous selfie drones are anything to go by, the Versa could have support for up to 8K video in 10-bit Log or HLG, along with rapid flying speeds of up to 45 km/h.
(Image credit: HoverAir on YouTube)
The test footage on HoverAir's website and the video we attached above look really impressive. The ingenuity of the concept warrants both excitement and skepticism, but it's undeniable that the Versa kind of feels magical. Nothing like it exists in the market today, and if the company can already ship excellent selfie drones like the X1 series, and pocket cameras aren't exactly rocket science, it stands to reason that harmonizing the two together is the only challenge for the Versa.
K3 Scout surveillance drones used by the UK’s Royal Navy contain components that have been secretly transmitting data to China, according to reports. The Telegraph’s revelations suggest that the sea drones include a camera component that would send the data to China. However, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) says that it has removed all internet connectivity from the cameras after discovering the breach. The transmitted data was also limited in scope, insists the MoD, which characterized the transmissions as “heartbeat communications” to simply verify the device is online and working normally.
Western governments have been seeking to minimize the ingress of Chinese technology into sensitive and critical infrastructure for some years now. The pushback started with investigations into rising telecom brands like Huawei and ZTE, which became very successful with their cheap and efficient equipment in the West.
More recently, we have seen pushback affecting Chinese drone companies, as the utility and value of drones have become incredibly clear in the Russia – Ukraine war. Western allies obviously don’t want drones with potential Chinese backdoors, killswitches, or so on inside them. However, even manufacturers in China’s fiercest foe, Taiwan, recently admitted that its drone-making operations were still dependent on Chinese components.
Returning to the topic of drones, specifically, the sea drones in the Telegraph story were reportedly acquired by a major British defense contractor, Kraken Technology Group. The same company “sourced the cameras from a third party who had given assurances about their security,” says the newspaper. But an unnamed Telegraph source told the paper that this security lapse was a “major failure,” meaning that confidence in the platform has been lost. It even goes on to say that there are concerns that these drones could have snooped on highly sensitive special military forces meetings, even when switched off.
An MoD spokesperson told The Telegraph that the issues with the Chinese cameras were identified during a routine cyber vulnerability assessment. That seems like evidence of good practice, showing proactive testing and assurance procedures are in place. Moreover, the investigation “found no evidence of MoD data or systems being accessed, compromised or transmitted externally.” That didn’t stop The Telegraph or shadow (opposition party) ministers from being “furious” about the revelations, though.
The K3 Scout drone can carry a 600kg payload at sea for 30 days continuously. The Royal Marines have been using a £12 million fleet of these drones since March and offered to deploy them to secure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. Special Operations Command also has K3 Scout drones, and these drones have been used by allies in NATO trials in the Baltic Sea.
In a time of rising skepticism against tech surveillance, it seems not even the best intentions can spare you from backlash.
That’s a lesson some good samaritans in Los Vegas learned the hard way, after a thermal imaging drone they were using to track a runaway dog was trashed by a group of unidentified vandals.
According to to Las Vegas station FOX5, the volunteer animal rescue group Paws Patrol LV has been scrambling to replace a $7,000 camera drone after it suddenly went offline while tracking an injured dog.
“For the past couple of days, we’ve been searching for a dog we believe was hit by a car,” the group wrote in a post on Facebook. “We searched on foot, but the vegetation was simply too dense to see through with flashlights. So we launched our thermal drone… one of the most valuable rescue tools we’ve ever owned.”
“Less than a minute after it took off,” the post continues, “a group of unhoused individuals knocked it out of the sky, smashed it, and threw it into the water.”
The animal-rescue group wasn’t left empty-handed for long, however, as a business owner from Montana chipped in to donate a brand new thermal imaging drone, per an update on the original post.
While it would be easy to blame a group of unwashed Luddites for the damage, it’s important to keep in mind that the true identity of the vandal or vandals remains unknown. If the vandals really are homeless, as Paws Patrol LV volunteers suggest, then their aversion to strange drones makes sense — elsewhere, surveillance drones have been deployed by police officers to clear homeless camps, while private citizens have used drones to drop dog feces on homeless populations struggling to survive.
And one doesn’t necessarily have to be homeless to have an aversion to the growing number of surveillance drones surfing our skies. In some parts of the US, malicious operators have used drones to harass random suburbanites and poach wildlife, while insurance adjusters are increasingly conducting secretive drone flights to find excuses to penalize homeowners and sometimes even drop customers altogether.
While we hope the dog gets found, the episode underscores a larger point: the skies have become a contested space, with drone operators both benevolent and vindictive jockeying for control — not just of the airspace itself, but over how their drones are perceived.
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