An Xwing Cessna equipped with the company’s Superpilot technology flies over California. Photo courtesy of Xwing. SAN FRANCISCO—The autonomous aviation company Xwing has submitted a Project Specific Certification Plan (PSCP) to the FAA, becoming the first Standard Category large unmanned aerial system to receive official project designation. This marks the beginning of the process for approval of uncrewed commercial cargo operations in the national airspace. Unlike other aviation projects that focus on augmenting piloted operations with autonomous technology or have Special Category certificat ..read more

An Event 38 E400 drone flies in Turks and Caicos. Photo courtesy of Event 38 Unmanned Systems. RICHFIELD, Ohio—Event 38 Unmanned Systems, which manufactures American-made mapping drones, said its E400 fixed-wing drone was used to collect aerial imagery and mapping data in Turks and Caicos. The drone captured enough data to produce orthomosaics of two entire islands, totaling 238 square kilometers, in a matter of days, the company announced. The project was conducted by PLACE, a global nonprofit technology organization dedicated to solving the inefficiencies of modern-day mapping and democratiz ..read more

CGConnect is transforming robotic vehicles across air, land and sea into a connected autonomous fleet Cloud Ground Control robotic fleet management platform Cloud Ground Control, developed by Advanced Navigation, has announced the launch of its cellular micro-modem CGConnect. Using 4G/5G networks, CGConnect links any uncrewed vehicle to Cloud Ground Control’s cloud-based drone fleet management platform, enabling live-streaming, command and control from a web browser. Cloud Ground Control is a SaaS platform that supports multi-user and multi-vehicle operations, making it ideal for robotic enter ..read more

Colorado-based P3 Tech Consulting LLC announces that it has partnered with the Energy Drone and Robotics Coalition (EDRC) to bring its world-class Law-Tech Connect Workshop (LTCW) platform to EDRC’s annual Summit this year. This co-located event will take place on Monday, June 12th at the Woodlands Waterway Marriott in Houston, Texas. P3 Tech is a veteran and woman owned business led by Dawn Zoldi (Colonel, USAF Retired), a licensed attorney and globally renowned industry expert. The company successfully launched its first LTCW at AUVSI Xponential 2022 in Orlando, Florida last year. It has pl ..read more

Textron Systems’ vertical takeoff and landing HQ Aerosonde 20. Photo courtesy of Textron Systems. Textron Systems’ Aerosonde unmanned aircraft has seen its use on Navy ships expand over the past year, and its maritime presence could increase further with the vertical takeoff and landing system for the Aerosonde that could see it find a home on a wider variety of vessels. In just over a year, “we have grown from one ship to four active Navy vessels, two ESB-class [Expeditionary Sea Base] ships and two DDG-class [Destroyer] ships,” said Wayne Prender, Textron’s senior vice president of Air Syste ..read more

Insitu’s new Flying Launch and Recovery System enables the Integrator vehicle to operate VTOL. Photo courtesy of Insitu. On the ground, it looks like a giant spider pouncing on its prey. But once airborne, Insitu’s latest VTOL system supports a unique paired solution that’s being offered to the U.S. Navy and other customers. In this iteration, Insitu’s Flying Launch and Recovery System (FLARES) octocopter is a VTOL mothership that launches the company’s Integrator fixed-wing vehicle. Integrator itself is essentially unchanged, but using FLARES provides maximum payload capacity and endurance of ..read more

A Flytrex drone makes a delivery. Photo courtesy of Flytrex. Flytrex has released its 2022 yardstick detailing customer trends across its drone delivery service in North Carolina and Texas. The yardstick is based on 2022 data from Flytrex’s operations and highlights the company’s achievements, from volume and types of items delivered to fastest time from order to delivery. With a rapidly growing list of collaborations with leading national restaurant and retail chains, Flytrex increased its customer base seven-fold year-over-year and completed tens of thousands of deliveries in 2022. Highlight ..read more

AeroVironment’s new Switchblade 300 Block 20 builds upon the system’s battle proven performance. Credit: AeroVironment, Inc. AeroVironment today unveiled the newest version of its Switchblade® 300 rapidly deployable loitering missile system. The Switchblade 300 Block 20 builds on Block 10C’s battle-proven performance with new operational features and significant performance and capability improvements. Switchblade 300 Block 20 is portable, lightweight, and easy to operate, requiring only a single operator. The new tablet-based Fire Control System allows operators to easily train, plan, and exe ..read more

Officials from Aeronautics Group and RV Connex at the agreement signing. Photo courtesy of Aeronautics Group. Israel-based Aeronautics Group has signed a collaboration agreement with one of the leading defense companies in Thailand, RV Connex, for in-country production of its Orbiter 4 tactical UAV. Local production will serve the interests of customers of both companies in the Asian Pacific region. Aeronautics will transfer knowledge for production of the system—including the air vehicle, its sub-systems and its ground support system—which the company offers its customers worldwide. In additi ..read more

Airwayz CEO Eyal Zor, right, shakes hands with Henk van Dijk, VP of aerospace operations of Royal NLR, after signing their collaborative partnership agreement. Photo courtesy of Airwayz. AMSTERDAM—Umanned traffic management (UTM) provider Airwayz announced it is collaborating with the Netherlands Aerospace Center to support drone traffic management across Europe. The partnership will see Airwayz and NLR combine efforts to perform trials, research best practice and accelerate research and development. Combining NLR’s expertise in air traffic management with Airwayz’ UTM system provides a framew ..read more