Drone Notes: Using eagles to capture drones, rise of the drone racing industry

One country has decided to use eagles to take down illegal drones. The Washington Post tells the story of how eagles are trained to hunt drones.

According to the Post report, the Dutch company Guard from Above are working with police authorities in that country to train eagles and other birds of prey to capture illegally operating drones.

“For years, the government has been looking for ways to counter the undesirable use of drones,” Sjoerd Hoogendoorn, Guard From Above’s founder and CEO, said in a statement. “Sometimes a low-tech solution for a high-tech problem is more obvious than it seems. This is the case with our specially trained birds of prey. By using these birds’ animal instincts, we can offer an effective solution to a new threat.”

The decision to use eagles is months away, with another study looking at the well-being of birds who conduct such activity.

RACING DRONES
Since drones are becoming one of the hottest hobbies, why not make it even more fun to use? How about having a drone racing league complete with drone races? While drone racing may be harder than one expects, it is generating some serious interest in terms of cash. How about 8 Million dollars?

The Formula One/eSports mashup was created by The Drone Racing League, with an investor group that includes the Miami Dolphins owner. The league has more than $8 million in funding, and last July 120 drone racing pilots competed in the first event in Sacramento, Calif.

Also, the Aerial Sports League has been formed that sponsors racing events and also conducted drone combat competitions.

This begs to question, “what other fun things can we do with drones? How about flying one into a state capitol. During an education debate at the New Mexico Capitol, a drone was flown into the building. Popular Science explained.

“In New Mexico, to encourage state funding of robotics programs, a group recently flew their own quadcopter inside the State Capitol (known as ‘The Roundhouse’). One lawmaker was even given first-person-vision goggles (FPV) to see what the drone saw,” according to the Popular Science report.

DRONES AND STARTUPS
Heli-Lab is an Italian startup. The company is using drones to bring the Internet to remote areas of Sicily. PSFK explains:

“The tasks delegated to the drones are different and increase with the ability to equip the APR-specific technology. On the side, the drones are also transformed into real PCs and hot spots, thus collecting a large amount of data in flight and transferring them to the cloud, as well as serving as Internet Access Points.”

It takes a WorkHorse to take on Amazon, or, a HorseFly. WorkHorse, the Ohio startup has decided to get into the drone delivery industry utilizing their drone they refer to as HorseFly. Fast Company recently profiled the startup. Following are some highlights of that report.
• The HorseFly is being developed in a partnership with the University of Cincinnati.

• HorseFly weighs 18 pounds with a battery, and can carry packages that weigh up to 10 pounds.

• The HorseFly landing pad is the roof of a Workhorse Group electric delivery vehicles, and the company has received an FAA exemption to test the drones.

In the Fast Company report, Workhorse CEO Steve Burns explained that “a driver at a company like UPS could have three or four deliveries that are closely spaced together, but one outlying house that is a considerable detour from the route. Burns argues that the driver could simply place the delivery on a drone. It would fly off while the driver serviced the bulk of the route. The drone would automatically return to the truck when done.”

Tech savvy California residents are using drones to help document the effects of El Niño. Many of the storms are are causing erosion of the state’s beaches. A California based startup, DroneDeploy, is helping by providing a free app. NBC reports: “The Nature Conservancy has partnered with a San Francisco-area startup called DroneDeploy that will provide a free app to drone owners for consistency. The app will provide automated flight patterns at the touch of a screen while cloud-based technology will make managing so much data feasible, said Ian Smith, a business developer for the company.”

OTHER DRONE HAPPENINGS
• The U.S. House of Representatives may soon consider a bill that would change how the Federal Aviation Administration regulates drone use. Specifically, the bill would exempt regulations on drones weighing less than 4.4 pounds.

“It would carve out an exemption for small drones, making it easier for businesses to use unmanned aerial vehicles for photography, checking downed power lines, and monitoring crops,” Fortune noted in this report.

• Speaking of the FAA, the federal agency has reduced the 30-mile “no drone zone” around Washington, D.C., back to the pre-Sept. 11 zone of 15 miles. According to a report from The Washington Post, the rule limited the activities of 14 drone member clubs in the area.

“Under the new rules, model aircraft weighing under 55 pounds can fly in the area between 15 and 30 miles of National if they are marked and registered and fly 400 feet or lower. If operators plan on flying within five miles of an airport or heliport, they must notify the facility or air traffic control tower before taking to the skies,” noted The Washington Post report.

• Staying on the FAA theme, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta recently announced that registered drones now outnumber all registered manned aircraft in the U.S.

He said drone registrations recently topped 325,000, surpassing the 320,000 registered manned aircraft.

• Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson recently said the Navy’s “Carrier Based Aerial Refueling System” (CBARS) will “liberate five or six aircraft” that are doing tanking missions and allow those manned fighters to conduct strike missions.

“It has a legitimate role in terms of tanking, and I would say that [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] is on the table for sure. We’ll free up tactical aircraft by virtue of taking on that mission, but even more important, we’ll learn how to integrate unmanned aircraft into our air wing,” Richardson said in this report from the U.S. Naval Institute news.