We last featured Rotron Power in UST 4 (Autumn 2015), its RT600 twin-rotor Wankel gasoline engine having enjoyed significant commercial success, in both of the versions that were then available...

As UAVs become part of everyday life, how we interact with them is growing in importance, and physical interaction is a key aspect of that. Landing on people automatically could be important for police officers and others who might need a UAV’s eye view of their surroundings several times during a mission but are too busy with their primary tasks to manage UAV landings. It might also include people who need rescue or urgent medical attention...

In the past 2 years there has been a growth in uncrewed systems designed for autonomous operations in enclosed, indoor spaces, where GNSS cannot be relied on for navigation. Although SLAM (often the key to indoor autonomous navigation) might once have been confined to high-end military systems...

In the world of autonomous vehicles, demand has arguably grown faster for marine systems than for any other vehicle type...

A small VTOL UAV fitted with a thermographic camera is a powerful tool for inspecting the integrity and energy efficiency of many kinds of installations that are difficult, time-consuming or dangerous to reach by methods that involve people working at height – and rooftop solar panels fit snugly into this category...

Despite the slow lifting of international travel restrictions over the past 2 years, CES remains the biggest show for many tech companies worldwide, particularly those working towards the next generation of autonomous and robotic systems...

We previously featured German aero engine manufacturer Limbach in UST 17 (February/March 2018). In that article, the company detailed its 7 kg L 275 EF two-stroke boxer twin that produces 18 kW and is aimed squarely at the kind of 25 kg MTOW UAV that has become the mainstay of aerial data and surveillance providers.

While people around the world now acknowledge the importance of environmental sustainability and helping the planet, it remains a sad and common sight for those living in city waterfronts to see litter strewn in urban waters...

While the spooky science of quantum mechanics underpins modern microelectronics, there’s a great deal of excitement and no doubt hype about the far less familiar field of quantum computing and its impact on comms, cryptography, sensing and other areas in which uncrewed systems are closely involved...

An early enthusiasm for computers and aviation, combined with talents that leaned more towards the practical than the academic, led Jarno Puff, now CTO of uncrewed subsystems developer LikeAbird, into an eclectic career that has encompassed industrial robotics, computing, UAV design and HMI development, emergency aviation and cloud computing...