Drones
Israel carries out drone strike in southern Lebanon, killing one person
Why is Israel still in southern Lebanon? A war to shape Lebanon's future At least one person has been killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, according to the state-run National News Agency (NNA), as near-daily attacks by Israel continue despite a November ceasefire. The attack on Monday hit an excavator in the Shamsiyah area of Sohmor in the Bekaa Valley, killing its driver. Footage on social media, verified by Al Jazeera, showed emergency responders carrying the victim away on a stretcher. One drone targeted the town of Aitaroun on Monday afternoon while another bombed a house in Houmin al-Fauqa. No casualties were reported in those attacks.
Denmark bans all civilian drone flights ahead of European summit
Denmark has banned all civilian drone flights this week ahead of a European Union summit in Copenhagen, the country's transport minister said on Sunday. The ministry said the decision was made in order to simplify security work for the police, and they could not accept foreign drones creating uncertainty and disruption. Denmark is one of several European countries that have reported drone incidents in recent weeks, with unidentified drones sighted above Danish military sites as recently as Saturday. Defence ministers from 10 EU countries have agreed to create a drone wall in response to the sightings, and Nato says it has enhanced vigilance across the Baltic. In their statement announcing the ban, the transport ministry said police were on significantly increased alert ahead of this week's summit and that they needed to take care of Danes and our guests.
Massive Russian drone and missile attack kills four in Kyiv
Men stand at the site of heavily damaged residential buildings following a Russian air attack on the outskirts of Kyiv on Sunday. KYIV - A massive Russian drone and missile attack against Ukraine lasting 12 hours into Sunday killed at least four people in Kyiv, including a 12-year-old girl, Ukrainian authorities said. Neighboring Poland scrambled jets to secure its airspace in the wake of the barrage, after NATO accused Moscow of being behind a series of violations of the defense alliance's airspace. Diplomatic efforts to stop the war have faltered, and Russia has vowed to press on with the offensive that it launched in February 2022. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.
Denmark bans civilian drone flights due to EU summit
A mobile radar installation is positioned near the strait between Denmark and Sweden on Friday. COPENHAGEN - Denmark will ban all civilian drone flights across the country over the coming days to ensure security as Copenhagen hosts an EU summit gathering heads of government, the transport ministry said Sunday. Mysterious drone sightings across Denmark since Sept. 22 have prompted the closure of several airports, with Denmark hinting at possible Russian involvement, though Moscow denies the charge. Drones were observed over Danish military sites Saturday night for the second straight day, Denmark's army said on Sunday. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.
DroneFL: Federated Learning for Multi-UAV Visual Target Tracking
Yu, Xiaofan, Wu, Yuwei, Mao, Katherine, Tian, Ye, Kumar, Vijay, Rosing, Tajana
Multi-robot target tracking is a fundamental problem that requires coordinated monitoring of dynamic entities in applications such as precision agriculture, environmental monitoring, disaster response, and security surveillance. While Federated Learning (FL) has the potential to enhance learning across multiple robots without centralized data aggregation, its use in multi-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) target tracking remains largely underexplored. Key challenges include limited onboard computational resources, significant data heterogeneity in FL due to varying targets and the fields of view, and the need for tight coupling between trajectory prediction and multi-robot planning. In this paper, we introduce DroneFL, the first federated learning framework specifically designed for efficient multi-UAV target tracking. We design a lightweight local model to predict target trajectories from sensor inputs, using a frozen YOLO backbone and a shallow transformer for efficient onboard training. The updated models are periodically aggregated in the cloud for global knowledge sharing. To alleviate the data heterogeneity that hinders FL convergence, DroneFL introduces a position-invariant model architecture with altitude-based adaptive instance normalization. Finally, we fuse predictions from multiple UAVs in the cloud and generate optimal trajectories that balance target prediction accuracy and overall tracking performance. Our results show that DroneFL reduces prediction error by 6%-83% and tracking distance by 0.4%-4.6% compared to a distributed non-FL framework. In terms of efficiency, DroneFL runs in real time on a Raspberry Pi 5 and has on average just 1.56 KBps data rate to the cloud.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,313
Can Ukraine restore its pre-war borders? Why are Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine a'red line' for Russia? Is Russia testing NATO with aerial incursions in Europe? Russian forces killed four people, including a 12-year-old girl, and injured 13 in an attack on Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, on Sunday night, Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv's military administration, wrote in a post on Telegram. Those killed also included staff and patients at a cardiology centre, Tkachenko added.
Denmark bans drone flights after latest drone sightings at military bases
Denmark has barred civilian drones from its airspace before a European Union Summit, following reported sightings of drones at several military locations overnight on Saturday. The Nordic country has been on alert following a string of drone incidents over the past week, which have led to the closure of several airports. The ban will remain in place from Monday through Friday of the coming week, when Denmark, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU for the second half of this year, will be hosting European leaders. In a statement earlier in the day, the country's Ministry of Defence said it had "several capacities deployed" after the drone sighting, without elaborating on the deployment, the number of drones or the locations. The latest incident comes a day after the NATO military alliance announced it was upgrading its mission in the Baltic Sea with an air defence frigate in response to the drone incursion in Denmark. In a statement sent to the Reuters news agency, NATO said it would "conduct even more enhanced vigilance with new multi-domain assets in the Baltic Sea region".
Heavy Russian drone attack kills at least four in Ukraine's capital Kyiv
Can Ukraine restore its pre-war borders? Why are Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine a'red line' for Russia? Is Russia testing NATO with aerial incursions in Europe? Heavy Russian drone attack kills at least four in Ukraine's capital Kyiv NewsFeed Heavy Russian drone attack kills at least four in Ukraine's capital Kyiv Russia has launched a heavy attack on Ukraine with hundreds of kamikaze drones hitting residential buildings in Kyiv. At least four people have been killed, including a 12-year-old girl.
At least 4 killed in major Russian drone, missile attack on Ukraine's Kyiv
Can Ukraine restore its pre-war borders? Is Russia testing NATO with aerial incursions in Europe? At least 4 killed in major Russian drone, missile attack on Ukraine's Kyiv At least four people have been killed, including a 12-year-old girl, and 10 others wounded as Russia launched a major drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian capital and the surrounding region. An air raid alert was in place over the Kyiv region early on Sunday, with the local military administration saying Russia was attacking with drones and missiles. Tkachenko wrote on Telegram that there were over 15 locations that had been damaged due to the barrage of attacks, including "drone strikes on multi-storey residential buildings".
Poland briefly closes airspace as NATO increases presence in the Baltic Sea
Can Ukraine restore its pre-war borders? Is Russia testing NATO with aerial incursions in Europe? Poland has briefly closed part of its airspace southeast of capital Warsaw, citing "unplanned military activity", as Russia launches a new wave of strikes against Ukraine. The deployment on Sunday of Polish and allied aircraft in the country's airspace comes as the transatlantic security bloc NATO announced that it is upgrading its mission in the Baltic Sea in response to drone incursions in Denmark and reported drone sightings in Norway. In the latest incident, the Polish armed forces said it scrambled aircraft to ensure the security of its airspace after Russia launched strikes on Ukraine.