Drone highways and corridors, flying over the ocean on hydrogen, a hybrid drone sets a new flight record, a world civil UAS market forecast looks bright, and a DroneMasters online meetup.
Airspace Link is a company that wants to play a role in developing drone highways for safe and efficient transportation. The company connects private drone operators with state and local governments. Their tag line is: Partnering with local government to expand drone innovation through communication, collaboration & connection and Airspace Link offers the “AirHub for Government” and “AirHub for Pilots” cloud-based drone platforms to manage and build a local drone community.
President and CEO Michael Healander says, “If you were to set up these drone highways, it’s really about figuring out the safest areas for the kind of drone I’m going to fly and figuring out the probability of hurting someone on the ground in creating these corridors.”
But are drone highways the right idea? We contemplate that question.
The Micro Air Vehicle Lab (MAVLab) of TU Delft University has developed a hydrogen fuel cell-powered drone in collaboration with the Royal Netherlands Navy and the Netherlands Coastguard. The 3-meter (9.8 ft) wingspan VTOL weighs 13 kg (29 lb) with 12 motors and propellers distributed on two wings. The 800-watt fuel cell stores hydrogen in a 300-bar (4,351-psi) composite hydrogen cylinder holding 6.8-liters.
Video: Novel versatile hydrogen drone developed by TUDelft – MAVLab
The experimental HYBRiX hybrid quadcopter hovered for over 10 hours after being loaded with 16 liters of fuel.
Video: New World Record of 10 hours 14 minutes with HYBRiX drone
A Teal Group study (2020/2021 World Civil UAS Market Profile and Forecast) finds that non-military UAS production will total $108 billion in the next 10 years. Such production was $5 billion worldwide in 2020 and is expected to grow to $18.4 billion in 2029 for a 15.6% compound annual growth rate in constant dollars. Teal Group analysis says consumer drone purchases are slowing, government purchases are small but growing, but commercial use will drive the market with a 21% compound annual growth rate.
The 54th DroneMasters Meetup will be held on 2 December 2020. The online event features one hour of “full...
