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 …

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.
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.
UPDATE 04/03/2014:
In this video update, we show that a quadrocopter can be safely piloted by hand after a motor fails, without the aid of a motion capture system. This follows our previous video, where we demonstrated how a complete propeller failure can be automatically detected, and that a quadrocopter can still maintain stable flight despite the complete loss of a propeller.
November 26, 2019
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