Clarion Drone Academy

Today, Attorney General William P. Barr issued Guidance to Department of Justice components regarding counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS) actions authorized under the Preventing Emerging Threats Act of 2018 (the Act). 

“This guidance was the product of extensive collaboration between the Department of Justice, the Department of Transportation and the FAA,” said Attorney General William P. Barr.  “It will ensure that we are positioned for the future to address this new threat, and that we approach our counter-drone efforts responsibly, with full respect for the Constitution, privacy, and the safety of the national airspace.”

The Guidance outlines the process by which authorized department components can request designation of facilities or assets for protection under the Act, and ensures coordination with the FAA when any C-UAS action authorized under the Act might affect aviation safety, civilian aviation and aerospace operations, aircraft airworthiness, and the use of the airspace.  This includes conducting a risk-based assessment in consultation with the Secretary of Transportation to examine potential airspace impacts and other considerations. 

“The Guidance is another important step forward,” said Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen, who is responsible under the Guidance for reviewing and approving DOJ components’ protection requests.  “The number of unmanned aircraft is increasing rapidly, as is their importance to the economy.  By further enabling the Department’s efforts to mitigate threats posed by errant or malicious UAS, the Guidance helps to bring us closer to the larger objective of ensuring all forms of air traffic in the National Airspace System operate lawfully and safely.”

Importantly, the Guidance also reflects the department’s dedication to protecting privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.  It contains explicit limitations on the retention and use of any data collected during the course of counter-drone operations and requires each component deploying C-UAS technologies to train personnel on privacy and civil liberties in that context.  The Guidance further contains testing, procurement, and training requirements for authorized department personnel. 

The publication of the Guidance can be found here.

Jeremy Howitt

Immediately before lockdown, a team from Snowdonia Aerospace, with partners SwiftFlight Avionics, University of Manchester and the Welsh Ambulance Service, completed a successful flight demo that showed proof-of-concept for beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) delivery of a defibrillator by drone to a remote, rural location that would be difficult to reach with an ambulance in a timely fashion.

This is the first demo of this type in the UK and one of only a handful that have been conducted worldwide.

The project was conducted at the Snowdonia Aerospace Centre, Llanbedr, North Wales, and funded by the UK Space Agency and Welsh Government under a National Space Technology Programme/Space for Smarter Government Programme to show how satellite-enabled drones could be used as part of a broader satellite-enabled network to support remote healthcare services in rural Welsh communities.

We’re also very grateful to Schiller UK for the loan of a FRED easyport mini defibrillator. The defibrillator was delivered by parachute drop to a “first aider” and “casualty” on a remote beach.

The drop point was 4.5 kilometres from the launch location and took 2 minutes 50 seconds to complete, whereas an ambulance would have taken an estimated 20+ minutes to reach the same location. We’re looking forward to continuing the BVLOS capability development as part of the upcoming UK Research & Innovation Future Flight Challenge and engaging with other emergency response stakeholders.

The surge in the demand for commercial drones by the professional segment inflates the global commercial UAS market

SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 2020 — Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, Global Commercial UAS Market Outlook, 2020, finds that the industry is transitioning from a nascent to a growth stage. With the surge in demand for commercial drones by the professional segment, unit shipment is estimated to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.5%, reaching 2.91 million units by 2023 from 2.44 million units in 2019. By 2023, North America will remain the largest market for commercial UAS with a total of 32.3% unit demand, followed by APAC and Europe at 29.1% and 23.3%, respectively.

“Unit growth is driven by increasing regulatory support for commercial drone use in the APAC region, especially India,” said Michael Blades, Aerospace, Defense, and Security Vice President at Frost & Sullivan. “There is also a significant increase in demand for professional segment drones to conduct crop spraying in China and other countries in APAC. Drone services companies tend to focus on specific verticals because a ‘one-size-fits-all’ business model does not work. Further, as companies gain experience through operations, those that can best innovate to meet specific end-user needs will prosper.”

Advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) for both autonomous flight and data processing, as well as platforms that have unique capabilities such as long endurance flights and conducting indoor/confined spaces inspections, are key trends inflating market growth.

Vendors should take a close look at unlocking the following opportunities:

• India’s move to lift a commercial drone ban: Vendors should penetrate this lucrative market by providing hardware, software, and other relevant services.
• Sensor/data fusion: UAS platform providers should work with sensor providers and software developers to integrate sensor/data fusion capabilities into their products, ensuring accuracy.
• New drone platforms: Drone control software providers will emerge to develop solutions that can easily support these innovative platforms.
• Repair and maintenance: As enterprise adoption continues and more businesses invest in high-value drone platforms and subsystems, there will be an increasing need to repair this equipment. Vendors involved in this segment can tap into this opportunity by partnering with hardware manufacturers.

Global Commercial UAS Market Outlook, 2020 is the latest addition to Frost & Sullivan’s Aerospace & Defense research and analyses available through the Frost & Sullivan Leadership Council, which helps organizations identify a continuous flow of growth opportunities to succeed in an unpredictable future.

About Frost & Sullivan

For over five decades, Frost & Sullivan has become world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. Contact us: Start the discussion.

Quantum Air plans to be the world's first electric air commercial operator when it opens an LA-based UAM network in 2021

While the electric virtual takeoff and landing (eVTOL) revolution is years away, Quantum Air plans to launch the world’s first commercial electric urban air mobility (UAM) network next year with a fleet of Bye Aerospace’s eFlyers. The electric airplanes are labeled under the eCTOL (electric conventional takeoff and landing) category.

LA-based Quantum saw the opportunity to turn the electric planes into inexpensive air taxis that can perform short hops between local airports. The company plans to start the first route sometime in 2021, linking LAX to other Los Angeles-area airports.

Quantum CEO Tony Thompson told Robb Report that the eCTOL fleet is designed to serve intracity travelers who want to measure travel time in minutes, rather than hours on the highway. It’s calling the project Quantum X.

Unlike the sci-fi quad copters and flying pods of the eVTOL fleet, the eFlyer 2 is a conventional-looking aircraft that uses electric power instead of fossil fuels. They operate at a fraction of the cost of a similar-sized airplane, which makes them attractive as training aircraft and, as it turns out, air taxis.

The eFlyer 2 looks like a conventional aircraft, but its electric engines make its operating costs significantly lower than comparable airplanes. It will serve as the affordable workhorse in Quantum’s air-taxi fleet.  Bye Aerospace

Bye Aerospace started developing the eFlyer 2 in 2014 as a cost-effective alternative to conventional trainers, as the demand for trained pilots is expected to rise fivefold over the next 20 years. Following the eFlyer 2, it is developing the four-seat eFlyer 4.

George Bye, CEO of Bye Aerospace, says electric aviation will be the springboard of the new UAM networks. Electric aircraft could also breathe new life into the aviation industry. “What we bring to aviation is…electric aircraft solutions to answer compelling market needs,” Bye says of his eFlyers. The company says the eFlyer2 costs $23 per flight hour to operate compared to $110 per hour for the Cessna 172, while maintenance costs for the electric engines are also much lower.

Both Quantum and Bye Aerospace are expecting rapid growth of the eFlyer fleet, so the companies have developed pilot-training programs with OSM, a Norwegian aerospace training company. The programs are expected to take 18 to 20 months for pilot certification.

“Our partnership with OSM means that Quantum pilots will fly commercially in essentially the same aircraft in which they trained,” Thompson says. “Our pilots will be intimately familiar with their aircraft, setting a new standard for safety.”

Quantum, which has a number of former FAA officials and aeronautics engineers on its staff, plans to enter the eVTOL market under its Quantum X program. It also has long-term plans for sub-orbital spaceships to help build colonies beyond the Earth. That project, called Quantum Z, remains confidential.

For Quantum, bringing futuristic, cost-effective air travel across different segments is the long-term goal.

As you might or might not know the beautiful Pacific island nation of Vanuatu has been hit by a category 5 cyclone on Tuesday, April 7th. “Harold” has been one of the strongest recorded storms to ever make landfall on Vanuatu . From what we know so far, not much has been spared by Harold, especially on the northern islands of Vanuatu.

What our connection to Vanuatu is
In 2019, a Wingcopter team spent almost half a year on Pentecost, one of the islands that suffered most. On Pentecost, we did a project together with UNICEF and on behalf of the local Ministry of Health, delivering cooled children’s vaccines to hard to reach places with our Wingcopter drones. Please watch this short video of the project to get an impression of what we did and of how people live there.

During this time, we made a lot of friends and really established emotional ties to these wonderful people who do not have much but who welcomed us with open arms and gave us the impression that we were doing the right things (one of these friends is the local chief nurse Dominique whom you can see at 0:34 in the video above). We became part of the local community. Exactly one year ago, several of our colleagues celebrated Easter in a Church in Melsisi that now has no roof. For some of us Pentecost even became “home” and we were all sad to leave when the project could not be continued late last year (although we hope, now more than ever, to return to Vanuatu soon).

What Pentecost looks like right now

Melsisi, the biggest village on Pentecost and our “home” during the project, has been utterly destroyed as you can see on the images above. These are the only blurry images (shot from a helicopter) we have received so far, as the communication on the island is currently down. The local Mini Hospital, the most developed medical institution of the whole island, seems completely destroyed, just as most other buildings.

Here is a picture of how beautiful and peaceful Melsisi used to be.

What we plan to do
As we have learnt, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, no foreign personnel will be brought to Vanuatu in the current emergency response efforts for the time being. Instead, all help will be organized internally. So, even though we cannot pack our bags, book a flight and go there to personally help, we are committed to help our friends on Vanuatu by other means and we want to levarage our networks to make as much of an impact as possible from the distance.

As we have not been able to reach any of our contacts on Pentecost, we have contacted a good friend of ours in Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, which seems to be spared by cyclone “Harold”. He will try to get to Pentecost and act as a scout, finding our friends and providing us with detailed information on what is needed most. He also agreed to act as our person of trust, organizing help on site.

In the meantime, we want to collect as much money as possible to help these people get back on their feed again. Our guess is that, right now, building materials and tools to repair and restore the most basic infrastructure, food and medical commodities is what is needed most.

Here is what rather little sums can do already:
– tin roof: 30€/sqm
– 50W solar panel:  30€
– cordless screwdriver: 50€
– electric generator: 200€
– 10kg of rice: 25€

Please donate whatever sum you want or can dispense with. Every donation helps, no matter how small or big, and is highly appreciated. We have started collecting money among all Wingcopter employees, and the motivation to help and give both small and big amounts is overwhelming (2.197€ and counting).

We guarantee that 100 % of the money will be passed on to the people we worked with on Pentecost (minus the small fee of 2,9 % plus 0,25 Euro per donation that gofundme automatically subtracts for providing this platform). We will NOT keep any of this money as administration fees or for any other purposes.

If we should not manage to transfer the money to our local contacts, we will donate the whole amount to Unicef Pacific or another well-respected NGO that is active in Vanuatu.

Also, we want to be as transparent as possible with the actual usage of the donations and will try to post regular updates.

Donate here

Deliveries have doubled in test locations

Alphabet’s drone delivery company Wing has seen a “significant” increase in demand in recent weeks as people adhere to social distancing rules during the COVID-19 pandemic. Business Insider reports that in the last two weeks the company’s drones have made over 1,000 deliveries, while Bloomberg reports a doubling of deliveries in the US and Australia.

Wing currently offers its drone deliveries in a limited number of places worldwide. These include locations in Virginia, Finland, and Australia, where the company has partnered with local shops for deliveries. Customers use Wing’s app to make an order, and their deliveries can arrive within minutes thanks to drones that can travel at around 65 mph.

Although Wing’s drones are limited by the amount of weight they’re able to carry, their deliveries can happen without people needing to travel or to interact with one another. It’s great news for communities trying to practice good social distancing during the pandemic. In contrast, it’s much more difficult for human delivery drivers to keep their distance.

Wing has expanded its delivery options in light of the pandemic by offering items like pasta and baby food due to the demands of people staying at home, Bloomberg reports, while in Australia it’s added another grocery store to fulfill requests for milk and bread.

”No one could have predicted coronavirus, but even we were surprised at the uptake of customers when ‘shelter in place’ came into Virginia,” Wing’s head of marketing and communications, Alexa Dennett, told Business Insider, “It’s really early days so it’s hard to know how coronavirus will shape our business’s strategy... Ultimately we would love many more households around the US and the world to have access to our technology.” Dennett declined to comment further on the company’s expansion plans.

Wing is currently the only service offering drone deliveries to the general public in North America, although Amazon is also working to launch its own Prime Air service.

Along with everything else these days, FAA testing centers across the country have closed.  But what does that mean for new pilots waiting to take their Part 107 Remote Pilots Certification test?  What if your Part 107 Certification has expired, as they all do after 24 months, and requires renewal?

Kittyhawk.io‘s Andrew Elefant addresses these questions and more in a blog post about the effect of coronavirus closures on the Part 107 process.  The short answer is that for now, according to the letter of the law, pilots whose Part 107 Certification expired in March can’t fly legally.  If the crisis continues, more pilots could end up without valid Part 107 Certifications.

It’s one of the truly “unforeseen circumstances” of the current crisis – but one which the FAA should address soon.

By Miriam McNabb

As emergency aerial missions become increasingly important during times of pandemic, drones are proving their worth, delivering vital cargo to remote or unreachable areas.

Pittsburgh-based drone firm Near Earth Autonomy has developed a system that allows military units to safely execute resupply missions with cutting-edge obstacle avoidance tech.

The company recently collaborated with the U.S. military’s in the Joint Capabilities Technology Unmanned Logistics Systems Aerial demonstration in Fort AP Hill, Va. as the first part of a three-year program.

During the simulation, 16 active-duty Army soldiers and Marines used Near Earth’s platform to execute 64 resupply missions.

The military hopes to deploy autonomous aerial support to bolster ground supply convoys and manned aircraft, reducing the risk of attacks against human suppliers attempting to replenish combat operations.

“From a logistics standpoint, the Marines are looking to deliver small to medium weight supplies like water, beans, and ammunition to forward operating bases,” Robert McKinney said. He is the technical manager for the Marine Corp Warfighter Lab’s unmanned aerial logistics program.

“We’re looking at fully autonomous rather than just manually operated vehicles. Without a man in the loop, losses are minimal and there are no humans at risk.”

ULS-A Operational Manager Joe Fagan applauded the simulation’s success:

“This was the first opportunity for the military users to interact with the ULS-A capability.  Whether they were uploading autonomy packages, downloading data, or operating as safety pilots, I was continually impressed with the breadth and depth of the Near Earth Autonomy Team.”

“We can apply this capability and really help out the warfighter. I see a lot of applications in delivering in austere environments,” Gunnery Sgt. David Ulrich said.

“In this way we’ll keep trucks off the road, we’ll keep Marines off the road and use technology to our advantage so that our troops can get what they need when they need it.”

In 2017, the USMC completed a successful demonstration of the Autonomous Aerial Cargo/Utility System, a project that converted a decommissioned UH-1H Huey helicopter into a semi-autonomous aircraft piloted remotely by an infantryman using a handheld tablet.

Two years ago, the Marine Corps contracted with drone startup InstantEye to deploy a UAV platform that will provide additional reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition capability to warfighters in the field.

Terra Drone group company KazUAV has helped Nur-Sultan police to use drones to patrol and monitor illegal border movement and slow the spread of coronavirus in Kazakhstan

Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan – April 9, 2020 – KazUAV, Kazakhstan’s leading drone service provider and a member of Japan-based Terra Drone Corporation, has been working at the frontlines to keep communities safe amid the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Providing direct support to the operational headquarters set up to prevent the spread of coronavirus in Kazakhstan, KazUAV has been helping the Nur-Sultan Police Department to patrol the borders of the locked-down capital city with drones, ensuring ‘contactless’ surveillance and fast-paced operations.

The Central Asian nation closed its borders and locked down its main cities, including Nur-Sultan, after confirming the first coronavirus case on March 16. The oil-rich country that borders Russia and China also announced a state of emergency, set to last until April 15, adopting tough measures to combat the pandemic. Some of the guidelines put forth by the Kazakh authorities include country-wide travel restrictions, suspension of public gatherings, and implementation of stringent sanitation and anti-epidemic measures.

All entrances and exits from Nur-Sultan have been completely blocked as part of these measures, mobilizing multiple law enforcement agencies of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Armored vehicles, barriers, and concrete blocks are being used to man the movement from the surrounding villages of Talapker, Karaotkel (Ilyinka), Koyandy, Kosshy, and Zhibek-Zholy, on the Nur-Sultan-Petropavlovsk highway. And an additional post has been set up by the municipal government of the Akmola region in Shubary to ensure there are no cases of non-compliance by the Kazakh population. KazUAV has been directly involved in the collection of information, operational monitoring, and coordination of actions of the Police Department and the Coronavirus Spread Prevention Operational Headquarters for all these areas.

Using drone-mounted cameras with both visible and infrared sensors, the KazUAV team has completed hundreds of flight hours, broadcasting all captured data, as well as the exact coordinates of objects of interest, directly to the operational headquarters command center. This has led to the authorities discovering multiple bypass roads and irregularities in the locked-down area – without which, the quarantine measures could not have proven effective.

When it comes to remote monitoring of vast areas, unmanned aerial vehicles are one of the best tools available to public safety agencies today. As a leading drone service provider in Kazakhstan, KazUAV not only gave Kazakh first responders access to cutting-edge drone technology, the company also assisted the enforcement agencies with the vast experience of its team of specialists, trained to operate day and night in the toughest of weather conditions.

Dmitry Ivanov, Development Director, KazUAV, says, “As international experience has shown, restrictions introduced to prevent the spread of the coronavirus are the most effective measures to fight it. Of course, it’s hard for everyone now; it is a challenging time for each one of us. But the call to ‘stay home’ is more relevant than ever in the context of drones. We are familiar with carrying out critical tasks like monitoring floods or patrolling important events, but this was an emergency request which needed an immediate response.”

About KazUAV
KazUAV is widely known in the Kazakhstan drone ecosystem for having provided unmatched GIS services to several government agencies and private companies, including mapping several of the country’s airports and providing surveillance services to the Kazakhstani special forces. KazUAV specializes in providing unmanned solutions for power line inspection and vegetation management for the energy sector; onshore/offshore infrastructure inspections, tanks inspections, and nondestructive testing for the oil and gas industry; and open-pit and underground mapping services for the mining sector.

About Terra Drone Corporation
Established in 2016, Terra Drone Corporation has quickly become one of the world’s largest industrial drone solution companies employing more than 550 drone industry professionals. The company’s head office is located in Tokyo, Japan, with branches spread throughout Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Oceania. Terra Drone provides innovative enterprise drone services for oil and gas, utilities, renewables, mining, construction, and GIS sectors, among others.

Terra Drone’s previous investments include UTM service provider Unifly; C-Astral, which develops high-endurance fixed-wing UAVs; RoNik Inspectioneering, which provides wireless inspection services for confined spaces; and Ventus Geospatial, which has patented gas leak detection technology. Going forward, Terra Drone will continue to invest in technology companies with cutting-edge solutions for drones. For all the latest news and information about Terra Drone, visit the company’s LinkedIn and Twitter handles.

Cyient, a global engineering and technology solutions company, today announced that it has been providing Cyberabad Police with drone-based surveillance technology to help implement the COVID-19 related lockdown in Hyderabad. The technology is enabling the Police make lockdown-related announcements and organize their ground forces to monitor the situation in congested areas of the city.

Equipped with surveillance cameras, thermal imaging payloads and sky speaker for public announcements, Cyient’s drone-based aerial inspection capability is positively augmenting the police’s ability to combat the spread of the pandemic. By providing situational awareness on a real-time basis, the technology gives Police the means to understand and deploy resources very quickly to manage evolving situations.

Recognizing the partnership with Cyient, Cyberabad Police tweeted: “Great collaboration with Cyient to stop the spread of COVID-19. Their drone-based surveillance is assisting our ground forces to monitor sensitive areas in the city. Visuals from the drones are enabling correct decisions on moving forces to sensitive areas.”

About Cyient:

Cyient (Estd: 1991, NSE: CYIENT) is a global engineering and technology solutions company.  As a Design, Build, and Maintain partner for leading organizations worldwide, Cyient takes solution ownership across the value chain to help customers focus on their core, innovate, and stay ahead of the curve. The company leverages digital technologies, advanced analytics capabilities, and its domain knowledge and technical expertise, to solve complex business problems.

With over 15,000 employees globally, Cyient partners with customers to operate as part of their extended team in ways that best suit their organization’s culture and requirements. Cyient’s industry focus includes aerospace and defense, healthcare, telecommunications, rail transportation, semiconductor, geospatial, industrial, and energy.

For more information, please visit www.cyient.com
Follow news about the company at @Cyient