How long does it take to identify the helmet of a hiker lost in a 183-hectare mountain area, analyzing 2,600 frames taken by a drone from approximately 50 meters away? If done with a human eye, weeks or months. If analyzed by an artificial intelligence system, one afternoon. The National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps, known by it's Italian initialism CNSAS, relied on AI to find the body of a person missing in Italy's Piedmont region on the north face of Monviso--the highest peak in the Cottian Alps--since September 2024. According to Saverio Isola, the CNSAS drone pilot who intervened along with his colleague Giorgio Viana, the operation--including searching for any sign of the missing hiker, the discovery and recovery of his body, and a stoppage due to bad weather--lasted less than three days.

"Aircraft can operate safely in fog, but airports go into a kind of slow motion," says travel expert Simon Calder. "Aircraft follow a beam from the instrument landing system. This beam must not be broken, which could happen when it's foggy," he tells the BBC. And when there are high winds, for safety, aircraft have to be more spaced apart than usual. Despite Heathrow trialling artificial intelligence to help planes land in low visibility, controllers in on-ground towers still need to clearly see an aircraft arriving before issuing a landing clearance, aviation expert Scott Bateman MBE wrote on X.

This week, Verizon has announced 5G Ultra Wideband partnerships with a pair of US universities, aiming to use the network to help explore drone flight alongside the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Industry 4.0 advancements with Pennsylvania State University. At CAST, the operator said it would use the 5G deployment to explore how the low latency, high speeds, and massive capacity of 5G can be used to help reduce drones' need for in-built heavy computing hardware. Making use of edge computing, the AI systems the drone makes use of can function more efficiently, allowing for better real-time interpretation of data and near instantaneous in-flight adjustments. More specifically, the technology will be explored in the context of difficult weather conditions, with researchers hoping the new capabilities will allow drones to detect, interpret, and adjust to weather conditions in real-time. The CAST lab includes a three-story-tall aerodrome filled with adjustable fans, allowing the researchers to mimic weather conditions from a gentle breeze to gale-force winds; it can even be tilted 90 degrees to simulate vertical take-off under challenging conditions.

Sensors that operate in Scotland's rain, snow and fog are providing data that could help autonomous vehicles see and operate safely in adverse weather. The Radiate project led by Heriot-Watt University has published a new dataset that includes three hours of radar images and 200,000 tagged road actors including other vehicles and pedestrians. The dataset solves a problem that has been facing manufacturers and researchers of autonomous vehicles. Until now, almost all the available, labeled data has been based on sunny, clear days. This meant there was no public data available to help develop autonomous vehicles that can operate safely in adverse weather conditions.

That's because precipitation covers cameras critical to the cars' self-awareness and tricks sensors into perceiving obstacles that aren't there. Plus, bad weather has a tendency to obscure road signage and structures that normally serve as navigational landmarks. Fortunately, researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Lincoln Laboratory are on the case. In a paper that will be published in the journal IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters later this month and presented in May at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), they describe a system that uses ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to send very high frequency (VHF) electromagnetic pulses underground to measure an area's combination of pipes, roots, rocks, dirt, and other features. The GPR builds a basemap that an onboard computer correlates, contributing to a three-dimensional GPS-tagged subterranean database.

Waymo's plan to launch a transportation service with self-driving cars in Phoenix, Arizona, later this year has a bit more riding on it than usual. Phoenix is just 10 miles from Tempe, Arizona, where a self-driving test car from rival Uber killed a pedestrian in March of this year. The company made a strong case Tuesday morning at Google I/O for how AI technology made its self-driving cars ready to hit the streets solo. But one of its strongest examples also showed how a self-driving car could intelligently scare the bejeezus out of a rider. It'll be interesting to see how perceptions of safety work their way into the self-driving car experience.

For a moment there, Arizona was the place for autonomous vehicles learning to drive. It's a logical starting point for experimental tech--still in its wobbly, Bambi legs stage--that likes warm weather, little rain, and wide open roads. It's easier for their complicated sensors to "see" there, you see. Arizona is, in other words, a lot like California, without the aggressive Department of Motor Vehicles and its pesky regulations. Governor Doug Ducey has directed all state agencies to make it as easy as possible for fully self-driving cars to test in Arizona, no permitting or reporting required.

A nonprofit group is testing this drone to see how fast it could get medications from a town to a remote village in Peru that's six hours away by boat. A nonprofit group is testing this drone to see how fast it could get medications from a town to a remote village in Peru that's six hours away by boat. If a snake bites you in a remote Amazonian village like Pampa Hermosa, Peru, and the local doctor is out of the right anti-venom, it might be wise to prepare some goodbyes. The nearest resupply, in a town called Contamana, is up to six hours away by riverboat, and you might not last that long. But you might last 35 minutes, the travel time between Pampa Hermosa and Contamana as the drone flies. A single unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV could dart over the lush canopy with a vial of lifesaving anti-venom, and a nonprofit called WeRobotics is trying to make that a reality.

As a sign of just how quickly autonomous vehicle technology is progressing, industry analysts are predicting that two-thirds of new cars sold in the United States in 2030 will drive themselves with no or very little human intervention. The admittedly optimistic forecast by McKinsey -- the firm has a less rosy version as well -- presumes a fast resolution of regulatory challenges and widespread acceptance by consumers. It also presumes that the technology can ensure a safe experience. Human drivers have enough problems navigating inclement weather. If they're to take their hands off the wheel, they'll have to be confident that computerized drivers can do better.

There are numerous obstacles retailers need to overcome before employing drones to deliver packages - and the UAV's lifespan is at the top of the list. However, Amazon seems to be headed in the right direction with an application that illustrates using'docking stations' for its autonomous carriers. The newly awarded patent that describes using tall structures such as lamp posts or churches that would allow the drones to recharge and continue on their route. Amazon's newly awarded patent that describes using tall structures such as lamp posts or churches that would allow the drones to recharge and continue on their route. The patent describes the use of the docking stations to make the drones fly longer routes, more accurately and provide the system with shelter during rough weather conditions.