The People's Liberation Army has yet to adopt a definition, let alone a formal plan, for "intelligentization (智能化)," a Chinese vision for the transformation of warfare through artificial intelligence and automation. But Chinese military theorists see it as a rare opportunity for "leapfrog development" over adversaries. One author suggests that Star Wars will "become a reality"; another says the fantasies from "mythological fiction" will come true. Their writings, while not authoritative, have coalesced around several key themes that offer a crucial glimpse into potential PLA thinking and ambitions. Whereas these earlier eras of warfare turned on "mechanization" in the "physical space" and "informationization" in the "information space," PLA theorists argue that intelligentization will center upon a "cognitive space" that privileges complex thinking and effective decision-making.

The Transform Technology Summits start October 13th with Low-Code/No Code: Enabling Enterprise Agility. Qualcomm is unveiling its platform that enables aerial drones to tap both 5G and AI technologies. The Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G platform aims to accelerate development for commercial, enterprise, and industrial drones to help enterprises capture data from drone cameras and process that data at the edge of the network. The platform is powered by Qualcomm's QRB5165 processor, and it builds upon the company's latest internet of things (IoT) offerings. The idea is to enable a new generation of low-power 5G drones that can capture a lot of data with cameras and transmit that data via 5G to an operator or send it longer distances over a network.

As the United States wildfire season continues to lengthen, electric utilities could find new value from drones backed by advanced analytics to help prevent disasters. Also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), drones can deliver literal birds-eye views of potential problems – encroaching vegetation, damaged equipment, nearby hazards – when there is still plenty of time to fix things. This year, during the COVID-19 pandemic, drones can also help keep people safe, going into the field to gather data while human experts stay safely inside and receive high-quality data for better business decisions. "Drones can quickly and efficiently gather information from power poles across vast expanses of the landscape," said Ron Gray, a senior solution engineer at SAP. "With analytical insights on where the biggest potential hazards are, electric companies can develop a prioritized schedule of inspections and maintenance plans, including outage management timeframes. This would also help utilities correct missing or inaccurate information on equipment with fact-based mapping data and prove compliance with regulatory reporting mandates."

Drones are not new to industry or the oil and gas sector. They have been used by companies that are offering full-service video, or to capture survey photographs for some time. However, Renner Vaughn, director of oil and gas at commercial drone operator, Cape, believes that there is a major gap between what companies are hoping for and achieving in the use of drones. "What we've done at Cape, is bring the user drones together with aerial telepresence, our technology, to give experts that visibility they need in real time," Vaughn said. "Instead of hiring a company to go out and perform the survey for you, I'm trying to coach them on what to see and what's important in terms of the asset inspection.

The drones fell out of the sky over China Lake, California, like a colony of bats fleeing a cave in the night. Over 100 of them dropped from the bellies of three Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets, their sharp angles cutting across the clear blue sky. As they encircled their target, the mechanical whir of their flight sounded like screaming. This was the world's largest micro-drone swarm test. Conducted in October 2016 by the Department of Defense's Strategic Capabilities Office and the Navy's Air Systems Command, the test was the latest step in what could be termed a swarm-drone arms race.

Real-time cell tower inspections by intelligent drone with deep learning capabilities demonstrated at GPU Technology Conference. One of the world's first automated inspections by an intelligent drone with deep learning capabilities was demonstrated at the GPU Technology Conference Europe by Aerialtronics, a Dutch manufacturer of technologically advanced drones, Neurala, a pioneer in deep learning software, and GPU-accelerated computing company NVIDIA. This new "intelligent drone" identifies objects and their condition in flight, which increases the efficiency and accuracy of documenting assets, lowering costs, and making it easier for frequent inspections. It adds to the use of commercial drones to help businesses access difficult and dangerous areas, such as cell towers and turbines. The resulting system can visually inspect a cell tower and recognise the equipment mounted on the mast.

Amsterdam, September 29, 2016 – One of the world's first automated inspections by an intelligent drone with deep learning capabilities was demonstrated at the GPU Technology Conference Europe today by Aerialtronics, a Dutch manufacturer of technologically advanced drones, Neurala, a pioneer in deep learning software, and NVIDIA, the world leader in GPU-accelerated computing. This new "intelligent drone" identifies objects and their condition in flight, which dramatically increases the efficiency and accuracy of documenting assets, lowering costs, and making it easier for frequent inspections. It adds to the use of commercial drones to help businesses access difficult and dangerous areas, such as cell towers and turbines. The resulting system can visually inspect a cell tower and recognize the equipment mounted on the mast. This is the first step required to start automating the documentation of assets, and assessing the mechanical functionality and condition of the cell tower to identify rust and other defects.