NOVEMBER 2020 – THREE MOST INTERESTING ARTICLES

1)     BRAND NEW SELF-CHARGING DRONES BUILT TO BE FIRST RESPONDERS

An American drone manufacturer, Sonin Hybrid, have built a drone solely to be the first responders in accidents/emergencies.

Reaching speeds of 140 MPH it is able to get to the desired location very quickly – plus it can fly for over three hours!

This above statement is crazy – the speed alone is impressive and surely one of the fastest drones out there, plus the fact that they have incorporated technology inside the drone that allows it to self-charge during flights is ground breaking!

Most drones have a much shorter flight time due to battery limitations meaning this is not usually possible.

With a 3+ hour flight time, first responders can carry out more extended police, fire and rescue missions.

The drone also comes equipped with a 30X Optical Zoom + 12X Digital Zoom 360-degree gimbal HD camera with fixed and mobile target tracking, an Infrared camera with night vision, a loudspeaker (5km range), flashing lights and a spotlight.

It is fantastic to see drones being put to good use and it might not be too long in the future where these first response drones are a normality. Similar to this drone, there are a number of other companies who have created firefighting drones specifically used to put out fires in tall buildings and remote locations in a quicker and safer manner. I look forward to seeing what more uses drones can assist with!

2)     ORLANDO WILL HAVE THE FIRST PORT FOR FLYING TAXIS IN THE UNITED STATES

Flying taxis sound like they are something from a sci-fi movie, but it is very much a reality now…

Huge companies like NASA, Airbus, Uber and Boeing have all entered the race, amongst lots of exciting start-ups, to build and deploy the first flying taxis.

Of those exciting start-ups a couple from Germany are doing especially well – Volocopter and Lilium. Volocopter have a successful prototype and may be leading the race in many respects, however like all of these organisations, the biggest hurdle that they face is public acceptance. Most often it is because flying taxis are seen as too dangerous and/or too noisy!

In October 2019, Volocopter hit a huge milestone in Singapore successfully completing its first manned flight.

Further and more recent developments are coming from Orlando, USA. Lilium are assisting to build the first port for flying taxis in the USA by 2025. This will be called “vertiport” and will be part of a futuristic smart city in the area. 

Lilium aim to have a fully electric and carbon free aircraft that can carry five passengers making regional trips faster than car or train, yet competitively priced too.

3)     NXP SEMICONDUCTORS ARE PARTNERING WITH AMAZON TO CONNECT CARS TO THE CLOUD

Earlier this month, NXP Semiconductors revealed that they had partnered with Amazon’s cloud computing unit to help cars become more connected.

NXP are a huge organisation, founded in the Netherlands, but also have had a large foundation in Germany for the last 90+ years. They are one of the market-leaders in supplying computer chips to automotive organisations. Put this alongside the powerhouse that is Amazon and AWS being the largest cloud computing service, and you have got quite a partnership. They will be making a new NXP chip designed to aggregate data from a car’s systems and send it over the internet to work better with Amazon’s data centres.

This collaboration promises to create better connected car systems. They believe that there is lots of room for improvement in this area and want to make automotive data processing faster and more cost-effective.

The technology will give automakers real-time insights allowing them to monitor for potential failures before repairs are needed which prevents costly repairs, makes the process more efficient and improves the customers service by minimising services. Furthermore, it will give insurance providers a much clearer and accurate data set meaning they could perhaps provide discounts to drivers based on the condition of their vehicles.

Connected cars is a huge market and there is expected to be half a billion connected cars on the road by 2025! The sectors worth is projected to triple over the next five years to circa $181 Billion…

And I’ve also added one more article as I thought this too cool not to mention…

4)     BMW HAVE MADE THE WORLD’S FIRST ELECTRIFIED WINGSUIT

 Is there anything BMW can’t do? ??

BMW have successfully enabled Peter Salzmann to fly.

Mr Salzmann wore a newly developed electric wingsuit and reached impressive speeds of up to 186 mph.

 He is a professional skydiver who thought up the idea after work one day and partnered with BMW to help make it a reality.

 It took three years in the making, but this month the wingsuit completed its first flight in the mountains of Austria. Mr Salzmann was dropped by helicopter at 10,000 feet and off he went.

 For comparison, two other individuals were dropped from the helicopter too, but were wearing conventional wingsuits. They reached speeds of around 60 mph, whereas Mr Salzmann had the electric wingsuit with the motor meaning he was able to reach a much higher speed of 186 mph.

 Not only did he travel a lot faster, but he also was able to fly higher whilst the conventional wingsuits continued to decline.

 Take a look at the video here:

In the era of new technology and new forms of mobility, BMW are consistently impressing and coming up with unique and creative ideas with their future-oriented approach. A very exciting time indeed!

 Who’s going to be travelling to work using an electric wingsuit next year?