At Stars and Stripes, Dianna Cahn profiles the U.S. Navy’s 132-foot-long Sea Hunter unmanned ship, saying: “At 132 feet long, the Sea Hunter is a prototype of the largest unmanned ship in the world and Navy officials are now looking at the sea drone’s potential to revolutionize fleet operations.”

The Pennsylvania Air National Guard’s 111th Attack Squadron initiated drone operations at Horsham Air Guard Station near Philadelphia. The 111th, which formerly maintained a fleet of A-10 Thunderbolts, will operate a Combat Air Patrol of MQ-9 Reapers in overseas missions.

A U.S. MQ-1 Predator drone crashed in southern Turkey shortly after taking off from Incirlik Air Base. According to a statement from the 39th Comptroller Squadron, the cause of the crash was a mechanical failure.

Iranian state-run media released a video purporting to show an Iranian drone flying close to an American aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf.

Intel Corp. has acquired German drone and autopilot developer Ascending Technologies. Ascending’s LED light painting technology was used to fly and draw the Intel logo while the moves were shot with long exposure photography.

According to the Autonomous Undersea Vehicle Applications Center, a non-profit industry advocacy organization, there are 251 unique configurations of unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) in service today, including 144 different vehicle platforms. That number is likely to grow in the coming years as the technology improves. Here’s what you need to know about them …

Algorithm allows for real-time object-detection without Lidar or Kinect

In May 2014, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began accepting petitions for exemptions to operate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) commercially in civilian airspace. As of 1 September 2015, 1,407 of 2,650 petitions have been approved.

Zurich-based robotics company Perspective Robotics this week unveils Fotokite Phi, their first consumer targeted, affordable, accessible, tethered flying camera. The Fotokite Phi is available now for pre-order on Indiegogo for $349 USD.

The use of robots to find victims after natural disasters is fast becoming commonplace, with well documented cases where robots have been sent into areas too dangerous for rescue workers.  While the issues surrounding robustness, control and autonomy are frequently cited as key areas for research, a  team from LIS, EPFL and NCCR Robotics is working on another important aspect, how to make flying robots easily transportable and quick to deploy.

VertiKUL can carry up to 1kg (~2 lbs) to a distance of 30 km (~18,5 miles) with a single battery charge. It takes off vertically with the help of four propellers, and then, in midair it rotates its nose 90° forward, making the transition from take-off to flying mode.

Jonathan Cheseaux, a masters student from Switzerland, has developed a system can detect and localize any WiFi device by sniffing its WiFi packets.

Although I am amazed with UAVs and their versatility, I must admit that having a flying camera zoom by – and zoom in on me – can be intimidating. Not because the drone has a camera, but because I don’t always know who is behind that camera. If the drone operator were immediately identifiable, however, I would have no problem. That is exactly the issue Fotokite tries to solve.