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Last month, California startup Skydio launched a new drone for the consumer market: Skydio 2. Then came a docking station that looks set to propel the same aircraft onto worksites around the country. The first impression is that Skydio 2 is a drone that could provide serious competition to DJI‘s …

An inside look as a team of drone and law enforcement experts explain the real life challenges of capturing precise aerial images of crime scenes at night. As part of DRONELIFE’s participation in the FAA’s Drone Safety Awareness Week, DRONELIFE will feature stories according to the themes outlined.  Today, we …

Sky Flight Air Aerial Drone Dji Inspire Nature The U.S. Department of Interior announced Wednesday that it would ground it’s fleet of DJI drones.  The decision, which is the result of congressional pressure, is the latest move in the argument over banning government use of  technology based solely upon “country …

DJI’s latest drone has arrived. As we revealed earlier this week, it’s called the Mavic Mini. As the name suggests, the Mavic Mini is tiny. It weighs just 249 grams and has very deliberately been designed to squeeze under the registration weight threshold put in place by aviation bodies around …

image: public domain In response to concerns about “malicious drone activity” the FAA has announced new airspace restrictions over 60 facilities – most of them federal prisons.  Reports of attempts to make deliveries to prisoners or otherwise interfere with federal prison operation with drones have increased: earlier this year, a …

Image public domain For several months, headlines have hinted that the U.S. Congress was considering banning Chinese-manufactured drones for use by the military.  Today, they got more definite: many news outlets indicated that the ban was all but signed into law.  Here’s what’s really going on behind the headlines: and …

Commentary.  The UK drone industry has taken a beating in recent weeks. First, the head of Unmanned Traffic Management at NATS, Andy Sage, took it upon himself to categorize drone pilots as either “clueless, careless, and criminal” in a parliamentary hearing – a mistake he has since apologized for. And …

DRONELIFE EXCLUSIVE: Colin Guinn on the drone industry, drone regulations, and his new gig at Sunflower Labs. It’s kind of hard to get in touch with Colin Guinn.  That’s because he’s doing a return appearance on Season 31 of The Amazing Race – a reality TV show where teams race …

The institute has begun to perform initial impact tests with drone batteries and motors. “Using compressed air, we accelerated these two components to speeds ranging from 115 to 255 meters per second and fired them at aluminum plates up to eight millimeters in thickness that were mounted in a test bench,” …

This illustration shows NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft-lander approaching a site on Saturn’s exotic moon, Titan. Credits: NASA/JHU-APL The drone industry is constantly achieving new firsts and new missions – and the Dragonfly may represent a whole new measure for what drones can achieve.  Previous longest missions will be dwarfed by the 8 …