This Week's Focus: Technologies for Drone Design
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Circuit Cellar's ongoing mission is to provide important information to help you make smart choices with your engineering projects, from prototype to production.

Your feedback is always welcome. - Jeff Child (
[email protected])
 
Demo Will Fly a DJI M600 Drone
For Two Hours Using Fuel Cells

Intelligent Energy has announced that it plans to showcase its lightweight Fuel Cell Power Modules for UAVs at a number of private flight demonstrations to commercial fleet operators.  Using a DJI M600 drone the company will showcase up to two-hour flight times using fuel cells. The invite-only flight demonstrations will be held in the Bay area, California; Tokyo, Japan; South Korea and selected locations across Europe over the coming few months.
The demonstrations will give potential customers the opportunity to see the fuel cell technology in operation and to speak to the Intelligent Energy team. Customers will be guided as to the right configuration required for their UAV (drone) fleet as well as providing information on refuelling and cylinder options. 
The demonstrations will present Intelligent Energy's range of fuel cell power modules (FCPMs).




Intrinsyc Technologies announced the Open-Q 845 µSOM (micro System on Module) and Development Kit, to be available in the fourth quarter of 2019. The Open-Q 845 µSOM is the latest product in the evolution of Intrinsyc's µSOM computing module series. It is an ultra-compact (50 mm x 25 mm), production-ready embedded module, well suited for powering the most advanced robotics, drones, cameras and embedded IoT devices requiring the latest on-device AI powers.
Featuring the Qualcomm SDA845 system on chip (SoC) from Qualcomm Technologies, the 845 µSOM integrates many new features and capabilities in the same small form-factor:
  • Higher performing Octa-core CPU - up to 2.6 GHz on Gold cores
  • New hardware-based security layers for vault-like defense
  • Third generation Qualcomm AI platform for immersive, on-device intelligence
  • Four camera ports with flexible configurations supports up to 7 cameras
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AirMap Acquires Drone Automation Firm Hangar Technology

AirMap has announced that it has acquired Hangar Technology, a vendor of drone workflow automation platforms for enterprises. The acquisition is part of AirMap's strategy of extending open, connected, and automated airspace management solutions to the entire drone economy and expands Hangar's reach to new international markets and industry applications.

By acquiring Hangar, AirMap augments its offering for enterprises, who are faced with mounting complexities to ensure the safety, efficiency and scalability of their advanced drone operations, says the company. Hangar Technology automates drone workflows for enterprises. Its products include JobSight (shown), a construction-focused application that automates orthomosaics, panoramas and other imaging, and TowerSight, a digital workflow application for automated tower inspections.

 
 
Win a Free 2018 Circuit Cellar Digital Archive!

This week's newsletter raffle is for a 2018 Digital Archive of Circuit Cellar magazine. Enter the drawing using the link below. The archive gives you access to view the twelve 2018 issues of Circuit Cellar. Your archive can be viewed in an online flip book or you can download the PDF copies. A $40 value! Drawing ends at midnight this coming Friday.

 
And congratulations to last week's raffle winner, Stefan K., who won a
1 year subscription to Circuit Cellar. Thanks to all who participated!

We Want Your Technical Article in Circuit Cellar Magazine

Circuit Cellar magazine is always looking for top-notch technical articles that help readers better understand embedded electronics technology in action. Professional engineers, academics, students and serious electronics enthusiasts are encouraged to submit articles and proposals.

Whether its a project-based article, an article about a technology trend, or an analysis of a technical issue or challenge, Circuit Cellar is looking for insightful, detailed articles that help its readers do their jobs as embedded system designers. If you have an article or an article proposal, let us know! Our article submissions page provides you with our requirements and guidelines.



High Stakes Future for Commercial Drones

-Jeff Child, Editor-in-Chief, Circuit Cellar - Editorial from November 352 Issue

I've spoken before in this column about the commercial drone market, and how it differs greatly from both the military drone and consumer drone market segments. While the military and consumer drone realms have pretty well-established design requirements, many of the embedded electronics design decisions for commercial drones haven't been nailed down. Drones in this segment are performing all sorts of missions for construction, agriculture, security, delivery, media and many more.

And commercial drones have to fly higher and longer than consumer drones. Meanwhile, a diverse industry of drone software and services has sprung up around the commercial drone space. Reliability is a major concern in commercial drones, and those service firms are very much aware that, if a drone stops working, so does their service. At this years InterDrone show in September, Tom Walker, founder and CEO of DroneUp, was among the keynote speakers and he provided an interesting perspective on the drone industry from a service provider point of view. DroneUp is a provider of end-to-end aerial data collection services for large, autonomous drone missions.




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FLIR Acquires Tethered Drone Technology from Aria Insights
 
FLIR Systems has announced that it has acquired the intellectual property (IP) and certain operating assets of Aria Insights. Terms of the deal are not being disclosed. Previously known as CyPhy Works, Aria pioneered the development of tethered small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS). Founded in 2008 by iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner and backed by several top technology investors, Aria notably developed the Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications (PARC) tethered drone. The company ceased operations in March 2019.

Tethered drones connect to a base station or vehicle by microfilament wire, which provides both continuous power and secure communications. For certain applications, a tethered drone offers advantages over a free-flying UAS, enabling sustained operations on longer missions and persistent situational awareness so users can perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) functions.



Enter to Win VersaLogic's New Android Demo/Eval Kit!
 
VersaLogic's new Android Eval Kit provides an easy way to evaluate Arm/Android performance for rapid design and application development. It includes everything needed to run the Android OS on a high-reliability embedded system, including an Arm-based embedded computer board and a touch-screen display. No additional carrier cards, companion boards or other add-ons are needed. The Android Eval Kit is designed to save start-up time and allow the user to focus on their product development.
 


Industry News & Recent Posts

10-28-2019 15:18:48 PM
ADLINK Technology has announced the general release of its ADLINK Edge IoT solution. With no programming necessary, the software enables you to quickly connect previously unconnected operational equipment, sensors and devices. Then, by tapping into native communication protocols, data can be captured and streamed at the edge. ... 
 Continue reading →...»

10-28-2019 14:50:45 PM
NXP Semiconductors has announced the i.MX RT1170 family of crossover MCUs that combines high performance, reliability and high levels of integration for use in industrial, IoT and automotive applications. NXP claims the i.MX RT1170 family is a technology breakthrough with MCUs that run up to 1 GHz while maintaining low-power efficiency. ... 
 Continue reading →...»

10-28-2019 13:00:21 PM
U-blox is partnering with the Kudelski Group to provide a service that helps clients protect IoT devices and the ecosystems that they enable. The IoT Security Lab is a consulting service offered by u-blox in partnership with the Kudelski Group, which has more than 30 years' experience of protecting business assets in high-value ecosystems. ... Continue reading →...»

10-28-2019 12:33:05 PM
Renesas Electronics has announced its RX72M Industrial Network Solution, designed to accelerate the development of industrial slave equipment using the RX72M Group of 32-bit industrial Ethernet MCUs. The new RX72M solution includes an evaluation board, an operating system, middleware and a sample software that supports approximately 70 percent of the communications protocols used in industrial network applications. ... Continue reading →...»

10-25-2019 16:42:11 PM
e-con Systems offers a multi-camera system for NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier Developer kit and NVIDIA Jetson TX2 Developer kit. Called SurveilsSQUAD, this multi-camera system is based on the SONY STARVIS IMX290 image sensor. With four SONY Starvis IMX290 - 2MP sensors working in synchronization, SurveillsQUAD provides seamless embedded vision with 360-degree field of view suitable for parking lot management. ... Continue reading →...»

10-24-2019 09:00:39 AM
Musical instruments such as the piano allow musicians to play in different keys on a single instrument. In contrast, bamboo flutes are designed for only one key. This means flute players must own a different flute for every additional key in which they want to play in. Learn how these three Cornell students built an PIC32 MCU-based electronic flute that reduces the need for owning multiple flutes by incorporating two buttons that allow a flute player to change the key and octave. ... 
 Continue reading →...»
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