How 3D Printing Will provide On-Demand Swarms of Disposable Drones.

How 3D Printing Will provide On-Demand Swarms of Disposable Drones.(Gizmodo).

New advances in 3D printing are making it not only possible but also viable to manufacture cheap, print-on-demand, disposable drones designed simply to soar off over the horizon and never come back.

Some British engineers did just that, and this is only the beginning.

The team hails from the Advanced Manufacturing Research Center (AMRC) at the University of Sheffield, where they're exploring innovative ways to 3D-print complex designs.

They built their disposable drone, a five-foot-wide guy made of just nine parts that looks like a tiny stealth bomber, using a technique called fused deposition modeling.

This additive manufacturing technique has been around since the 1980s but has recently become faster and cheaper thanks to improved design processes.Read the full story here.

"Survival of the Fittest" Drone-spotting: Survival guide informs on new breed of aerial predators.

"Survival of the Fittest" Drone-spotting: Survival guide informs on new breed of aerial predators.(RT).

In light of the growing number of drones, the Guide advises a number of techniques to evade and scramble drones. The document is available online and has been translated into 17 different languages.

“Our ancestors could spot natural predators from far by their silhouettes. Are we equally aware of the predators in the present-day?” writes the Guide.

It contains the silhouettes and measurements of all of the most widely-used drones, from the ‘Killer Bee’ to ‘The Sentinel’ as well as information on where they are currently operational. It goes on to detail ways you can hide from a drone.

“Most drones are equipped with night vision, and/or infrared vision cameras, so-called FLIR sensors. These can see human heat signatures from far away, day or night. However there are ways to hide from drones.”

Among the tactics it advices for eluding the aerial craft are: hiding “in thick forests,” wearing space blankets to confuse heat sensors, not using wireless communication, and the use of mannequins or human-sized dolls as decoys.

“Wait for bad weather. Drones cannot operate in high winds, smoke, rainstorms or heavy weather conditions.”


As well as avoidance strategies to escape from the craft, the document also gives advice on how to hack into a drone’s systems. The Guide gives the assurance that as long as a drone’s communications are not encrypted then they can be hacked. It describes how to intercept and interfere with the workings of a drone and also details a process called “spoofing”.

“Small, portable GPS transmitters can send fake GPS signals and disrupt the Drones navigation systems. This can be used, for example, to steer drones into self-destruction flight paths or even hijack them and land them on a runway.”Read the full story here.

Video - Vertical take Off Drones .

First up is the Aerovel Flexrotor, designed by the same folks who brought you the Insitu ScanEagle. The company has just completed what it believes are the first autonomous launches and recoveries of an unmanned aircraft from an unmanned boat. With a 9.8ft span, the 44lb Flexrotor is designed to fly for more than 40hr, or 2,000nm, at speeds up to 79kt, with an imaging turret in its non-rotating nose.

The Flexrotor is a taillsitter (more correctly a wingsitter if you watch the video) that takes off vertically like a helicopter then transitions from rotor-borne to wing-borne flight, which gives it long endurance, before transitioning back to thrust-borne flight for a vertical landing. The slow-turning proprotor provides both vertical and forward thrust. Proprotor cyclic pitch and small stowable roll thrusters at the wing tips provide control in vertical flight, while conventional aerodynamic surfaces on the wing and fold-out tail provide control in forward flight.

The video shows how the UAV, supported by a pair of extending arms, launches itself from the remotely controlled skiff, transitions from vertical to horizontal flight and back again, landing vertically back on to the support arms, which have "combs" to capture the wing. The UAV is then centered and pulled in to be autonomously refueled and restarted for a second launch and recovery cycle. Aerovel is aiming the Flexrotor at civil applications such as geological survey, weather reconnaissance, fishery surveillance and environmental monitoring.
From Aerie in Austria, we have a modern re-interpretation of the Triebfluegel (thrust-wing) - an unmanned aircraft in which the wing spins like a rotor for vertical flight then stops for forward flight. Aerie says its designs can reach 24hr endurance, three times that of a conventional VTOL design. The video shows the company's progress over the last three years of tests - both rotary-wing and fixed-wing flights and transitions between the two.

The aircraft is a "nosesitter" - it takes off and climbs vertically, tail-first, in rotor-borne mode, then dives to convert to forward-flying wing-borne flight. To land the UAV climbs, flips over, and descends nose-first in rotor-borne flight. The big "tails" on which the UAV sits (which become forward-swept canards in forward flight) use downwash from the rotor/wing to counter any torque on the fuselage.



Aerie is working on a range of UAV sizes from 2-200kg (roughly 4.5-450lb). In the 25kg S-25 Swift and 150kg D-150 Dipterion designs, the rotor/wing is driven by two small propellers on the leading edges. The 2kg I-2 ILE has the drive props mounted on separate stub wings at 90deg to the rotor/wing. while the 200kg K-200 Kestrel has a jet-drive system. Aerie is now taking options on the I-2 and S-25.Read and see the full story here.

"Vorsprung durch technik" - Festo to fly Bionic 'Dragonfly Copter' at Hannover.

"Vorsprung durch technik" - Festo to fly Bionic 'Dragonfly Copter' at Hannover.( Canadian Manufacturing).Building on the work of last year’s bionic creation, the Smart Bird, Festo announced that it will literally launch its latest creation, the BionicOpter, at Hannover Messe in April. With a wingspan of 63 cm and weighing in at 175 grams, the robotic dragonfly mimics all forms of flight as its natural counterpart, including hover, glide and manoeuvring in all directions.

This is made possible, the company says, by the BionicOpter’s ability to move each of its four wings independently, as well as control each wing’s amplitude, frequency and angle of attack. Including its actuated head and body, the robot exhibits 13 degrees of freedom, which allows it to rapidly accelerate, decelerate, turn and fly backwards.

“This unique way of flying is made possible by lightweight construction and the integration of functions: components such as sensors, actuators and mechanical components, together with open- and closed-loop control systems, which are installed in a very tight space and matched accurately to one another,” explained Dr. Heinrich Frontzek, Festo’s head of corporate communications and future concepts.

In total, the BionicOpter’s wings are actuated by nine servomotors. The first, positioned in the base of its main body housing, regulates the frequency of the wing beats, which can be varied between 900 to 1200 times per minute (15 to 20 hz). Additionally, four motors (one at each joint) independently control each wing’s amplitude—or how far it travels per beat—to anywhere between 80 to 130 degrees of deflection.Hmmm........Smile at the dragonfly.....cause you're on camera.Read the full story here.