RoboBee Comes in for a Landing

The Harvard RoboBee has long shown it can fly, dive, and hover like a real insect. But what good is the miracle of flight without a safe way to land? A storied engineering achievement by the Harvard...

A Training Method for Multiagent Systems Promises Safe Operation

A team of MIT engineers has developed a training method for multiagent systems that can guarantee their safe operation in crowded environments. Read on to learn more about it.

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including a practical way to make hydrocarbons powered solely by the sun; an air traffic control system for drones that can effectively and accurately track anything in an identified low-altitude airspace; and a robotic system whose primary structural platform, or “orb,” can be injected into a pipe network and perform reconnaissance of piping infrastructure and other interior volumes.

New Research Sheds Light on Using Multiple CubeSats for In-Space Servicing and Repair Missions

As more satellites, telescopes, and other spacecraft are built to be repairable, it will take reliable trajectories for service spacecraft to...

MIT Engineers Help Multirobot Systems Stay In the Safety Zone

Drone shows are an increasingly popular form of large-scale light display. These shows incorporate hundreds to thousands of airborne bots, each programmed to fly in paths that...

New Microactuator Driving System Could Give Microdrones a Jump-Start

An innovative circuit design could enable miniature devices, such as microdrones and other microrobotics, to be powered for longer periods of time while staying...

Engineers Enable a Drone To Determine Its Position in the Dark and Indoors

In the future, autonomous drones could be used to shuttle inventory between large warehouses. A drone might fly into a semi-dark structure the size of several...

NASA Demonstrates Software ‘Brains’ Shared Across Satellite Swarms

New NASA technology works within satellite swarms. This technology, called Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy (DSA), allows individual spacecraft to make independent...

Autonomous Navigation for Drones

Researchers have introduced a new approach, MiFly, that enables a drone to self-localize in indoor, dark, and low-visibility environments.

What Changes Are Needed for Counter UAS Regulations in Civilian Airspace?

Lisa Ellman, Executive Director, Commercial Drone Alliance (CDA), is the guest on this episode of the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast.

How a Cloud-Based Remote ID System Helps Monitor Random Drone Sightings

Taylor Sinatra, Chief Operating Officer of AeroDefense, is the guest on this episode of the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast.

UxV/35: A New Approach to Lowering the Cost of Designing Drones

On the first episode of Season 7 of the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast, Dom Koenig, Marketing Manager, Kairos Autonomi, explains how the UxV/35 standard could be used to lower the cost of designing and manufacturing drones in the future.

Designing Robotic Insects for Mechanical Pollination

MIT researchers are developing robotic insects that could someday swarm out of mechanical hives to rapidly perform precise pollination.

Quoth the RAVEN: I Can Fly Like a Bird

RAVEN (Robotic Avian-inspired Vehicle for multiple ENvironments) is designed based on perching birds that frequently switch between air and land. Its multifunctional robotic legs allow it to take off autonomously in environments previously inaccessible to winged drones.

A New Home for Sustainability Robotics

The world is currently facing significant environmental challenges and complex demands related to infrastructure and natural ecosystems. To address these issues, viable solutions that are both...

5Ws of a Raven-Inspired Drone

EPFL researchers have built RAVEN, a drone that can walk, hop, and jump into flight with the aid of birdlike legs.

Foot Pedal Controller

Innovators at the NASA Johnson Space Center have developed a novel foot-pedal-operated system and device to control movement of an object in 3D space. The Foot Pedal Controller system enables operators to control movement of spacecraft, aircraft, and watercraft using only foot pedals. Read on to learn more.

Helping Robots Make Good Decisions in Real Time

In 2018, Google DeepMind's AlphaZero program taught itself the games of chess, shogi, and go, using machine learning and a special algorithm to determine the best moves to win a game within a...

Bird-Inspired Drone Can Jump for Take-Off

EPFL researchers have built a drone that can walk, hop, and jump into flight with the aid of birdlike legs, greatly expanding the range of potential environments accessible to unmanned aerial...

DC-DC Converters for High Reliability eVTOL Auxiliary Power Systems

eVTOL power system architectures are not yet well defined, and with the wide variety of possible configurations, from small, unmanned drones through multiseat passenger craft, there may never be one standard. Read on to learn what this means.

Shedding Weight: Connectivity in Military-Aerospace Applications

Weight is among the most critical factors behind component choice when it comes to aerospace applications. Being among the bulkiest of components, connectors and cables need to embrace the latest scientific advances in order to reduce weight and enhance performance, fuel efficiency, and overall system reliability. This article outlines the recent advances enabling lighter connectors for aircraft, satellites, and drones.

Scaling Manufacturing and Production for 'Data as a Service' Electric Drone

Fatema Hamdani, co-founder of Kraus Hamdani Aerospace, is the guest on this episode of the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast.

Backup System Can Keep an Airplane on Course When It Cannot Rely on GPS Satellites

Dangling from a weather balloon 80,000 feet above New Mexico, a pair of antennas sticks out from a Styrofoam cooler. The antennas are listening for signals...

AI Helps UAVs Predict Oncoming Turbulence

Professor Animashree (Anima) Anandkumar and her team at The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed a control strategy for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that uses reinforcement learning to adaptively learn how turbulent wind can change over time and then uses that knowledge to control the UAV based on what it is experiencing.

The Unusual Machines Approach to Low-Cost Drones and Drone Components

Unusual Machines CEO Allan Evans is the guest on this episode of the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast.

Shape Memory Alloy Tubular Structure

Applications include vehicle and aircraft tires, sports helmets, military equipment, and seals and couplings. Read on to learn more.

AI-Trained Vehicles Can Adjust to Extreme Turbulence on the Fly

In nature, flying animals sense coming changes in their surroundings, including the onset of sudden turbulence, and quickly adjust to stay safe. Engineers who design aircraft...