This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. A video posted toward the end of February on the Facebook page of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, showed grainy aerial footage of a Russian military convoy approaching the city of Kherson. Russia had invaded Ukraine several days earlier, and Kherson, a shipbuilding hub at the mouth of the Dnieper River, was an important strategic site. At the center of the screen, a targeting system locked onto a vehicle in the middle of the convoy; seconds later, the vehicle exploded, and a tower of burning fuel rose into the sky. The Bayraktar TB2 is a flat, gray unmanned aerial vehicle (U.A.V.), with angled wings and a rear propeller.

RUSKA LOZOVA, Ukraine – The Ukrainian major had a few tasks to complete as he made the rounds along his army battalion's front line. One platoon commander needed anti-tank weapons. Another wanted to show off a new line of trenches his forces had dug following a recent Ukrainian advance. But as he drove between positions in his camouflaged armored van near the town of Derhachi, the clock was ticking. A Russian surveillance drone hovered above, watching, sending back coordinates to Russian artillery units, the major said. About 20 minutes later, at least three shells rained down, forcing the major and his team to scramble.

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Ukraine's defense ministry on Saturday claimed it had sunk a Russian Serna-class landing boat off of the now-famous Snake Island which has stood as a symbol of resistance since the beginning of the war. Undated video footage posted to social media appears to show an airstrike hitting a landing vessel that had soldiers on board. Spokesman for the Odesa Regional Military Administration, Serhii Bratchuk, told Ukrainian news outlet Pravda that Zmiinyi Island – also known as Snake Island – has become "a symbol of our rock-hard endurance and our ability to shatter the enemy's most persistent efforts."

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are widely used platforms to carry data capturing sensors for various applications. The reason for this success can be found in many aspects: the high maneuverability of the UAVs, the capability of performing autonomous data acquisition, flying at different heights, and the possibility to reach almost any vantage point. The selection of appropriate viewpoints and planning the optimum trajectories of UAVs is an emerging topic that aims at increasing the automation, efficiency and reliability of the data capturing process to achieve a dataset with desired quality. On the other hand, 3D reconstruction using the data captured by UAVs is also attracting attention in research and industry. This review paper investigates a wide range of model-free and model-based algorithms for viewpoint and path planning for 3D reconstruction of large-scale objects. The analyzed approaches are limited to those that employ a single-UAV as a data capturing platform for outdoor 3D reconstruction purposes. In addition to discussing the evaluation strategies, this paper also highlights the innovations and limitations of the investigated approaches. It concludes with a critical analysis of the existing challenges and future research perspectives.

In the snowy streets of the north Ukrainian town of Trostyanets, the Russian missile system fires rockets every second. Tanks and military vehicles are parked on either side of the blasting artillery system, positioned among houses and near the town's railway system. The weapon is not working alone, though. Hovering tens of meters above it and recording the assault is a Ukrainian drone. The drone isn't a sophisticated military system, but a small, commercial machine that anyone can buy.

Scientists from China's Zhejiang University have unveiled a drone swarm capable of navigating through a dense bamboo forest without human guidance. The group of 10 palm-sized drones communicate with one another to stay in formation, sharing data collected by on-board depth-sensing cameras to map their surroundings. This method means that if the path in front of one drone is blocked, it can use information collected by its neighbors to plot a new route. The researchers note that this technique can also be used by the swarm to track a human walking through the same environment. If one drone loses sight of the target, others are able to pick up the trail.

A new navigation system enables a swarm of 10 lightweight drones to fly together without crashing into one another or obstacles, even in challenging places such as forests. Drones can compute their location and find a path to follow using a panoply of sensors, which can be expensive and unwieldy. Shrinking down a drone often involves getting rid of key components, impacting its ability to travel safely. Xin Zhou at Zhejiang University in China and his colleagues have developed a new method that reduces the size and hardware requirements of a drone while keeping its computing nous. The palm-sized, 300-gram drone uses off-the-shelf computer components powered by a 100-gram battery that can keep it aloft for up to 11 minutes. The drone has a camera that feeds real-time footage to its processing unit.

In March, a largely overlooked, 90-page Government Accountability Office study revealed something interesting: This summer, the Pentagon is getting a new AI Strategy. Between shaping ethical norms for AI and establishing a new Chief Data and AI Officer, it's clear top brass have big plans for the technology, though the report is light on the details. Released in 2018, the last AI Strategy laid the scaffolding for the U.S. military's high-tech competition with China. But over the past four years one thing has become apparent: The United States needs a balanced approach to AI investment -- one that doesn't simply guard against threats, but also imposes costs on a Chinese force that sees AI as the key to victory. Undoubtedly, a military conflict between the United States and China would be catastrophic, and every effort must be taken to avoid such an outcome through diplomatic means.

If you enjoy articles about A.I. at the intersection of breaking news join AiSupremacy here. I cannot continue to write without community support. This content is borderline NSFW, as I don't agree with all the Ukraine posting. But still I believe it's a story that needs to be told. On March 30th, 2022 the U.S. included 100 killer drones called Switchblades in an arms package to Ukraine.

In Kyiv, we have a very dark twilight, so dark that it is almost like night. Because of the curfew, most of my drawings are from my apartment window. Sometimes, I see an explosion reflected on the glass surface of a skyscraper, or silent flares going up and then burning out in a shower of sparks. One week, I saw anti-aircraft guns firing tracer rounds into the night sky, where a hunt for a Russian drone was under way. Since the Russian Army retreated from Kyiv, the mood in the city has noticeably changed.