An autonomous drone delivery network will deliver blood across Switzerland starting next month in a world first. The permanent network will see flying robot couriers shuttling blood and pathology samples between hospital labs and clinics. The drones will launch from stations that automatically replace the batteries and cargo, which is boxed by humans before flight and retrieved using a smartphone. Medical samples can be delivered to urban hospitals within 30 minutes, Matternet, the company behind the networks, claims. An autonomous drone delivery network will deliver blood across Switzerland starting next month in a world first.

At the vast, windswept White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico earlier this year, nearly a dozen military contractors armed with laser guns, high-tech nets and other experimental systems met to tackle one of the Pentagon's most vexing counterterrorism conundrums: how to destroy the Islamic State's increasingly lethal fleet of drones. The militant group has used surveillance drones on the battlefield for more than two years. But an increase in deadly attacks since last fall -- mostly targeting Iraqi troops and Syrian militia members with small bombs or grenades, but also threatening American advisers -- has highlighted the terrorists' success in adapting off-the-shelf, low-cost technology into an effective new weapon. The Pentagon is so alarmed by this growing threat -- even as it routs the Islamic State from its strongholds in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria -- that it has launched a $700 million crash program overseen by two senior Army generals to draw on the collective know-how and resources of all branches of the armed services, Silicon Valley and defense industry giants like Boeing and Raytheon to devise tactics and technology to thwart the menace. One important piece of that effort was the contest in New Mexico.

Commercial drones are shaping and changing many industries around the world and the commercial drone space is rapidly growing, but there are still many challenges to overcome and gaps in the ecosystem to enable drones to be used at scale for jobs that were previously too dangerous, costly or difficult, and applications yet to be imagined. The Commercial Drone Fund was established to support businesses that are developing technologies and services that are critical to scaling the use of commercial drones across a variety of applications.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – A Copenhagen court has jailed a man for 25 days under Denmark's anti-terror laws for allegedly shipping drones, components for unmanned aerial vehicles and infrared cameras that were bound for the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. Police say the 28-year-old man was held on "strong suspicion" of taking part in terrorist activities abroad by purchasing and shipping the equipment via Turkey. A 29-year-old woman who was arrested with him on Thursday has been released. It is unclear if she remains a suspect. Police said a 31-year-old man who is believed to be in Turkey was being sought on an international arrest warrant Friday on suspicion he received the shipped items.

As unmanned technology develops at lightning speed and news feeds increasingly feature reports of drones encroaching on U.S. airspace and sometimes even commercial aircraft, airports across the country urgently need guidance, tools and a road map to provide users and customers with a safe, secure operating environment. Brent Terwilliger is developing solutions. Terwilliger – an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide assistant professor of aeronautics and program chair for the Master of Science in Unmanned Systems degree in the College of Aeronautics – investigates outreach and engagement efforts between airports and the unmanned aerial systems (UAS) operational communities. "Understanding the environments where this technology presents some of the most significant technological and safety challenges, while establishing a clear path to disseminate research findings and recommendations, will be essential to realizing success," he says. "By working with a well-rounded, connected and experientially diverse team at Embry-Riddle, we are able to bring unique perspectives and possible solutions to the table."

US President Donald Trump is seeking to loosen some Obama-era limits on drone strikes and ground raids outside conventional war-zones, US media reports have said. The New York Times, citing unnamed officials, reported on Thursday that Trump's top national security advisers have proposed relaxing two rules from administration of Barack Obama, the former US president. The officials said the targets of kill missions by the military and the CIA would be expanded to include foot-soldier fighters with no special skills or leadership roles. The officials added that proposed drone attacks and raids would no longer undergo high-level vetting. The New York Times report comes after NBC News published a story on Monday about the Trump administration contemplating policy changes that will further expand the CIA's authority to conduct drone strikes in a number of countries, both in and out of war-zones.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration is preparing to relax Obama-era rules on drone strikes and commando raids, paving the way for more frequent operations against Islamic State and other militant groups, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing officials familiar with the internal deliberations.

Drones are becoming an important part of the emergency services. Police are using them to search for missing people, while fire departments test them as a tool to survey dangerous sites. Until now, however, we haven't seen or heard about them being used by the coastguard. That all changes today, however, as a lifeboat service in Norfolk, England, has started using them in open water. As the BBC reports, they're equipped with cameras that can live-stream footage to monitors inside the boat.

A police officer of SBA controls a drone during a demonstration at the British police station inside the British military base in Dhekelia in southeast of the island of Cyprus, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Police at Britain's two military bases on Cyprus say the use of a state-of-the-art drone will greatly boost their ongoing crackdown on the illicit trapping of migratory birds.

Deep Learning or DL is a subfield of machine learning which makes use of artificial neural networks, a mathematical system inspired by the way neurons function in the human brain. AI is fast becoming an integral part of the drone industry by enhancing the intelligence of the drone systems with respect to flight operations, data management and most importantly traffic management. DL as already discussed earlier is an AI technique that gains knowledge through training a neural network, a computer system that's designed to process information like the human brain. It provides a complete end to end solution where it will design the optimum flight path for the drone in order to capture the most complete data for any use-case, fly the drone across this flight path and generate and analyze thorough 3D models based on the data captured.