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Airborne-Unmanned 12.12.17: ERAU Storm Chaser, USMC Drone Insignia, Malawian UAV


Also: NLR Signs Agreement, QinetiQ, Big Bend Community College, 2nd Annual UAS Conference, Tigershark UAS Kicking off a series of tests for its capstone project, the UAV Storm Chaser team at Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University completed its first Remote Controlled (RC) flight of a UAV on Nov. 17. Considered a “huge success,” the RC fight was used to demonstrate “all of the communication components of the UAV linking together properly, to calibrate the motors and motor controller, to get flight time, and to go through the process of setting up all of the parameters in mission planner.” The UAV Storm Chaser team is one of five teams within Embry-Riddle’s Electrical, Computer, Software, and Systems Engineering (ECSSE) Capstone Class, which is a two-semester class that provides students in their final year with project experience that mirrors what they will experience in their respective fields of work. The status of military drone operators is about to be upgraded... The U.S Marine Corps has authorized a Drone Operator insignia that can be affixed to the uniforms of enlisted operators. The approval was one of several published by the service in late November. It is part of a DOD effort intended to recognize the growing importance of the new community. Virginia Tech and Malawian teams have used a fully autonomous UAS to conduct tests at the UNICEF drone testing corridor in Kasungu, Malawi, which opened back in July. Virginia Tech says that “the flights by a fully autonomous aircraft designed in mechanical engineering’s Unmanned Systems Lab set several records in Malawi,” including the longest cross-country UAS flight, the first flight of an aircraft created by Malawians, and the first delivery of a payload from a health clinic. All this -- and MORE in today's episode of Airborne-Unmanned!!!


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