EHang is flying its urban air mobility vehicle contender. Remote identification of drones is moving forward. Also, using drones to measure methane emissions, find standing water where mosquitoes breed, assess hurricane damage, explore Titan, and plant trees.
The EHang 216 passenger-carrying autonomous aerial vehicle (or AAV) was flown at the 2019 Northeast Asia Expo in August. Ehang has been demonstrating the aircraft at several cities in China as well as in Austria, the Netherlands, and Qatar. Ehang says, “This is a critical step towards making our dream [a] reality and to make urban air mobility broadly available and affordable as a safe, fast, and eco-friendly transportation alternative.”
Video: EHang AAV Trial Flights Across Cities in China
A draft of the proposed ASTM standard for electronic identification of drones is available as ASTM WK65041, “New Specification for UAS Remote ID and Tracking.” During operation, a drone would transmit a unique ID, location, and vector. The chairman of ASTM International’s Committee F38 on Unmanned Aircraft Systems said, “You can just take a phone, point it up at a drone and get its electronic ID if you see it doing something dangerous. [And you can report it] just like reporting a car’s license plate number.” Old drones can be retrofitted with ID chips that would plug into their USB ports and might cost $7 to $12.
BP said it is going to monitor its methane emissions around the world using a technology called gas cloud imaging and drones. Inspections would take 30 minutes instead of seven days. The sensor technology was originally designed by NASA for the Mars Curiosity Rover. This is a key part of BP’s strategy to deploy a suite of complementary methane detecting techniques across new and existing facilities.
Mosquitoes are the main transmitters of malaria, and they breed in standing water. Agricultural irrigation can create standing water which is difficult to detect with satellite imagery. In the East African nation of Malawi, Professor Jon Carroll and other researchers from Oakland University spent nine days collecting data on the effectiveness of drone imagery to detect standing water.
Two organizations have formed a joint-reconnaissance team to survey the Bahamas following Hurricane Dorian:...
