The United States military carried out its first ever drone strike against Qaeda militants in southern Libya this weekend, signaling a possibly significant expansion of the American counterterrorism campaign in the North African nation. Until now, the Pentagon had focused its counterterrorism strikes in Libya almost exclusively on Islamic State fighters and operatives farther north -- eight since President Trump took office. In 2016, the military conducted nearly 500 airstrikes in the coastal city of Surt over several months to destroy the Islamic State's stronghold there. But the attack on Saturday that the military's Africa Command said had killed two militants -- later identified by a spokeswoman as belonging to Al Qaeda's branch in northwestern Africa -- took place in the country's southwest, a notorious haven for a deadly mix of Al Qaeda and other extremist groups that also operate in the Sahel region of Niger, Chad, Mali and Algeria. "This appears to be the continuation of expanding AFRICOM activity in Libya's ungoverned areas," said Deborah K.

OBJECTIVE: Develop a system that can be integrated and deployed in a class 1 or class 2 Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) to automatically Detect, Recognize, Classify, Identify (DRCI) and target personnel and ground platforms or other targets of interest. The system should implement learning algorithms that provide operational flexibility by allowing the target set and DRCI taxonomy to be quickly adjusted and to operate in different environments. DESCRIPTION: The use of UASs in military applications is an area of increasing interest and growth. This coupled with the ongoing resurgence in the research, development, and implementation of different types of learning algorithms such as Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) provide the potential to develop small, rugged, low cost, and flexible systems capable of Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) and other DRCI capabilities that can be integrated in class 1 or class 2 UASs. Implementation of a solution is expected to potentially require independent development in the areas of sensors, communication systems, and algorithms for DRCI and data integration.

Demolition teams have been working to tear down five homes in Hemsby, Norfolk, after coastal erosion left them on a cliff-edge.

It's not secret Amazon wants to leverage drones to help deliver packages. A recent patent might shed light on how the process could work. Amazon earned a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a drone system allowing the vehicle to react when someone waves their hands or shouts. The patent was first spotted by tech site Geekwire. When a drone recognizes a human gesture through one of its sensors, it will process it against a database of gestures then respond accordingly.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. Agility Robotics had a good week. Cassie had a meet-and-greet with a four-legged friend during one of our visits to Playground.

The US Army wants to develop small drones to automatically spot, identify and target vehicles and people. It may allow faster responses to threats, but it could also be a step towards autonomous drones that attack targets without human oversight. The project will use machine-learning algorithms, such as neural networks, to equip drones as small as consumer quadcopters with artificial intelligence.

Amazon's drones could soon have a way to deal with unhappy customers who aren't happy with their deliveries. The firm has filed a patent to embed sensors in its drones that could react to voice commands and hand movements. This means the UAVs could respond to people screaming, waving their hands and making frantic or rude gestures during a delivery. Based on customer reactions, the drones could release the package, change their flight path or ask the human down below a question about the delivery, the patent suggests. Entitled'Human interaction with unmanned aerial vehicles', the patent was issued to Amazon on 20 March by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Diagrams show the drone reading human body language with commands such as'Receive human gesture' and'access gesture database', writes Los Angeles Times.

Imagine thousands of "talking" drones, able to act as one to perform high-level rescue missions in the face of imminent danger. Sounds like a scene straight out of a Hollywood movie, but in a University of Pennsylvania lab, engineers have produced just that. "Swarm" drones, which can navigate on their own and coordinate with one another using sophisticated metric technology, could become the next fleet of emergency responders. These devices can function as a rescue unit to investigate an active crime scene or natural disaster – capturing images and other data that could help law enforcement plan next steps from a safe distance, said Penn researcher and team member Giuseppe Loianno. "Imagine in the case of a fire, the drones can be sent," said Loianno.

Amazon was just issued a patent for a UAV that can interpret gesture and vocal commands, a device that could in theory be used to deliver packages. First spotted by GeekWire, the patent describes a drone-like device outfitted with various sensors, cameras and other equipment that could recognize gestures such as a person waving it towards them or someone shooing it away. In some very entertaining illustrations, the patent shows the UAV approaching a human who's waving at it wildly. This isn't the only device that incorporates human gesture as a control mechanism. DJI's Spark drone can be directed with arm movement and a recent Samsung patent shows a drone that can track users' eyes, heads and hands and can be controlled through gesture.

Supporters of the bills, which now head to the state Senate, pointed to past instances of drones being used in Michigan for airborne contraband smuggling. They also warned of terrorists using drones to survey possible targets.