O Polo de Vairão da FCUP recebeu um conjunto de equipamentos tecnológicos de última geração, financiados pelo PRR, que incluem a primeira sala de simulação agrícola, pioneira em Portugal, e protótipos de robótica terrestre e aérea.

The post Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto aposta em simulação, robótica e drones para ensinar a agricultura do futuro appeared first on Tek Notícias.

Researchers have developed a drone that becomes nearly invisible by spinning at 25 revolutions per second. Rather than relying on traditional camouflage, it exploits motion blur to make itself significantly harder to detect in plain sight. Conventional drones are generally easy to spot due to their rapidly spinning propellers and relatively bulky airframes. Engineers at Northwestern […]

The post Optical Illusion at Work: New Drone Can Appear Invisible While Flying appeared first on AERONAUT.media.

In the latest twist on battlefield innovations, Ukraine has used both flying drone carriers and drone boats to send ground robots armed with weapons or explosives into battle.

The drone-assisted deployments have enabled slower wheeled robots to bypass tough terrain and Russian defenses, and to carry out an unusual robotic amphibious assault on a contested position. Such tactics also showcase the Ukrainian military’s ongoing experimentation with using drones and robots to offset a Russian military advantage in manpower while also sparing Ukrainian soldiers from making dangerous assaults.

On July 19, a Russian military Telegram channel posted a video showing a Ukrainian hexacopter drone carrying a ground robot suspended below by a cable, according to the Ukrainian government-run news platform United24. The Russian Telegram channel described the Ukrainian heavy bomber drone as deploying a four-wheeled ARK-1 robot armed with explosive anti-tank mines on the ground where it continued toward Russian military positions—and apparently generated plenty of outraged comments from pro-Kremlin social media users.

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We can think of no possible way that a newly invented invisible drone can be used nefariously.

Rather than relying on camouflage, the flying gizmo created by researchers at Northwestern University exploits the motion blur effect in our fallible human vision to almost disappear by spinning at an absurd 25 times per second.

This is too quick for us and many animals to see clearly, becoming a gossamer smear that blends into the background, like the way the blades of a helicopter do, only more extreme. 

One day, this type of design could be used for completely peaceful pursuits, the researchers say — like observing wildlife, of course.

“Most efforts to hide drones focus on making them look like their surroundings,” Michael Rubenstein, an associate professor of computer science and mechanical engineering at Northwestern who led the research, said in a statement about the work.

“Instead, we asked whether we could design the drone itself around the way humans perceive motion,” he added. “This idea of low visibility through persistent motion is something few people have explored.”

To create the drone, dubbed “Phantom Twist,” the team used a computational model to churn out around 20,000 different drone designs, then used AI and optimization algorithms to repeatedly rearrange how its major parts, like their motor and propeller, were configured. 

Then they took the best configurations and used a model that simulates human perception to quantify how visible each design appeared. The least visible designs were chosen to be further rearranged with the optimization algorithm, until landing on the blurriest candidate of them all. 

“The design process was fully automated,” Rubenstein said. “Then, when we were confident that a drone met all our criteria, we built it.”

Their research, detailed in a paper awaiting peer review, was presented at the Robotics: Science and Systems 2026 conference in Sydney this month.

It’s not the first spinning drone, but it is the first that’s been optimized to be effectively invisible to the human eye. Its major components are carefully spaced enough from each other to never become a distinct shape when viewed from any angle while spinning — all while being capable of stable flight.

According to the researcher’s visibility model, this allows the Phantom Twist to be about ten times less visually perceptible than a conventional quadcopter drone. Impressive footage certainly bears this out: after the drone gets up to full speed, it almost looks like the ghost of a tiny UFO.

The drone is quite noisy, however. If something like it is going to be used to observe wildlife one day, it’ll have to be vastly quieter. Until then, if these faint apparitions are ever turned on humans, at least we’ll be able to hear them coming.

More on robots: Autonomous Robots Confirmed to Have Killed Human Soldiers

The post We’re Admittedly Terrified That They’ve Now Invented Invisible Drones appeared first on Futurism.

BAE Systems has announced the development of BlackThorn, a new generation of modular multi-purpose warheads designed specifically for autonomous platforms, one-way attack UAVs, counter-drone systems, guided missiles, and unmanned ground vehicles. According to the company, the new warhead has already been selected to equip Frankenburg Technologies’ Mark I short-range surface-to-air missiles. The development of the […]

The post Breakthrough in UAV Technology: BAE Systems Unveils the BlackThorn Universal Warhead appeared first on AERONAUT.media.

Ukraine presented a new reusable version of the domestically developed An-196 “Liutyi” long-range unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at the Farnborough International Airshow. The platform was displayed equipped with four air-to-surface cruise missiles. This new configuration may indicate the evolution of a platform that had previously been employed as a one-way attack (kamikaze) drone. This is […]

The post From a Kamikaze Drone to a Cruise Missile Carrier: Ukraine Unveils a New Version of the An-196 “Liutyi” UAV appeared first on AERONAUT.media.

Drones capable of spraying water and fire retardants have been practicing how to snuff out wildfires early in California and Alaska this summer—demonstrating a possible rapid-response tool for firefighting as climate change transforms wildfire season into a nearly year-round risk for much of the United States.

Most drones are significantly smaller than crewed aircraft and have shorter flight ranges, meaning they cannot replace large airtankers in delivering massive payloads of water or other fire-suppressing payloads to remote wildfires. But companies and fire agencies—along with organizers of the $11 million XPRIZE competition—are testing whether drones can help firefighting crews respond more quickly to small fires and put them out before they become more destructive.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as CAL FIRE, ran its own field test involving five autonomous drones that worked together to deploy between 500 and 1,000 gallons of foam combined for suppressing fires on July 15, according to the TV station KPMH. The demonstration was organized with the help of the nonprofit FireWERX and the California-based company Seneca, which is making the drones commercially available starting in 2026.

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