An under-development drone powered by a hydrogen fuel cell beat its hour-long flying time target in recent testing, staying aloft for over 70 minutes with a 5 kg payload. Dubbed Project Rachel, the British drone is a collaboration between engineering firm Productiv, UAS videography company BATCAM and fuel cell provider Intelligent Energy, with support from Innovate U.K., a group set up with British government money to stimulate growth by providing grants to business ventures with new ideas.

Drones have a fundamental design problem. The kind of drone that can carry large payloads at high speeds over long distances is fundamentally different from the kind of drone that can take off and land from a small area. In very simple terms, for the former, you want fixed wings, and for the latter, you want rotors.

Passerine's fixed-wing drones can take off (and land) using a pair of legs.

The Trump administration on Monday proposed rules that would allow drones to ope...

Quadcopters with thermal imagery cameras can help detect vicious mini-mines that often kill or maim children

For years tech companies such as Amazon, Alphabet and Uber have promised us delivery drones bringing goods to our doorsteps in a matter of minutes. So why are they taking so long to arrive? One word: regulation. If our skies are to become as crowded as our streets, airspace rules need updating to prevent accidents, terrorist attacks, and related problems, such as noise pollution. But that's easier said than done. Here's a rundown of the main issues.

It isn’t unreasonable to think of drones as pesky technological nuisances. Our modern digital ecosystem regularly infringes on traditional notions of privacy and bombards our limited attention spans with stimuli. A swarm of drones hovering overhead seems like the physical manifestation of these intrusions and distractions. But we shouldn’t swat them away just yet. Drones still have practical utility and the potential to change industries.

Airport still closed after what police describe as deliberate attempt to disrupt flights

In the past couple of years, drone toys have become more popular in kids than old traditional toys. With their increasing popularity, the companies are

On December 1, 2013, Americans watched a segment on 60 Minutes about Amazon’s plans to deliver packages by drone in just “four or five years.” Well, it’s officially been five years. And Amazon’s failure to make drone delivery a reality is a great reminder that PR promises from big tech companies are often not worth very much. And frankly, it’s also an opportunity to be thankful that Amazon isn’t yet buzzing drones over our heads like it owns the skies.

Alphabet is bringing its drone service to Europe. On Tuesday, Wing, a drone delivery business owned by Google's parent company, said it'll launch in Europe in the spring of 2019, with the introduction of service in the Helsinki area of Finland. Wing has spent the past 18 months testing drone deliveries in southeastern Australia, according to its website, partnering with local businesses to deliver food, drinks, medicine and household items.

The New York Police Department is to start using quadcopters in its crime-fighting work. Trained cops will have access to various models — all made by DJI — for use in particular situations such as search-and-rescue missions, hostage situations, and hazardous material incidents.

Drone "hot spots" in Australia are getting sensors to automatically identify the aircraft and their pilots. Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (Casa) said it would install the equipment at the nation's airports starting next month. The monitors have been planned for some time, but come in the wake of 72 hours of drone-related disruption at the UK's Gatwick airport last week.

Jeff Bezos boldly predicted five years ago that drones would be carrying Amazon packages to people's doorsteps by now. Amazon customers are still waiting. And it's unclear when, if ever, this particular order by the company's founder and CEO will arrive. Bezos made billions of dollars by transforming the retail sector.

When disaster knocks out cell towers, gas-powered drones can restore service. Verizon and AT&T are experimenting with the technology.

Even small drone operators could be subject to FAA regulations

Despite protests from employees, Google is still charging ahead with a Department of Defense collaboration to produce machine-learning software for drones. Google hasn't listened to a contingent of its employees that is unhappy with Google's involvement in the military-industrial complex, and now a report from Gizmodo says "about a dozen" employees have resigned over the issue.

Google will not renew a contract to do artificial intelligence work for the US Pentagon, company sources say. The decision follows strong opposition in the technology giant's workforce. A number of Google employees resigned and thousands of others signed a protest petition against taking part in the Pentagon project, known as Maven. They feared it was the first step towards using artificial intelligence for lethal purposes. There has been no official statement from Google.

Israeli company Flytrex is to expand its drone delivery partnership with Icelandic retailer Aha

Hi-tech drones that look and move like real birds have already flown over restive Xinjiang region

Dimitar Karanikolov is a Bulgarian architect with a passion for travel and aerial photography, exploring unchartered views of the world.

Move over, joysticks, torso-controlled drone flights are far more immersive and precise.

AI-guided fliers will identify fishing boats venturing into protected waters.

The Colombian government has started to use drones to destroy the plants that produce cocaine. Small aircraft loaded with herbicide are being sent to search for illegal fields of coca. President Iván Duque has favoured the use of the unmanned aircraft to ensure that damage to neighbouring crops is kept to a minimum.

Drones could tell when people are tired and lower a coffee on an "unspooling string", IBM suggests.

A person with a brain chip can now pilot a swarm of drones — or even advanced fighter jets, thanks to research funded by the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. The work builds on research from 2015, which allowed a paralyzed woman to steer a virtual F-35 Joint Strike Fighter with only a small, surgically-implantable microchip. On Thursday, agency officials announced that they had scaled up the technology to allow a user to steer multiple jets at once.

The Wild West days of unregulated recreational drones may be nearing an end. A bill close to passage in Congress would repeal the current exemption for hobbyists from regulations and for the first time require them to take a test before flying. It also says such operators must fly no higher than 400 feet and stay clear of traditional aircraft. They may have to eventually install radio identification signals on the devices.

Soon, perhaps even by the time you read this, the rules for flying remote-controlled aircraft in the United States will be very different.

The FBI is convinced that terror groups will use drones to carry out attacks on American soil, director Christopher Wray said Wednesday. Wray told a Senate committee hearing the threat of drones and other unmanned aircrafts is "steadily escalating" due to their widespread availability and ease of use.

Uber may be delivering burgers by drones as soon as 2021. According to a job listing spotted by The Wall Street Journal, Uber is looking to hire an operations executive to make drone delivery functional by next year and available for commercial use by 2021. The job post referenced UberExpress — which is the internal name for UberEats' drone delivery initiative — and said the executive would help "enable safe, legal, efficient and scalable flight operations" for the program.

A Northwest Territories judge has reluctantly accepted a plea bargain for a man who repeatedly lied to police and flew a drone in airspace used by planes taking off and landing at the Yellowknife airport. It marks the first time somebody has been convicted under the Criminal Code of dangerous operation of an aircraft as a result of illegally flying a drone, according to RCMP.

As drones become smaller and cheaper, experts urge people to use caution when flying near wild animals like this brown bear and her cub.

As drones become smaller and cheaper, experts urge people to use caution when flying near wild animals like this brown bear and her cub.

A group of shocked cyclists captured video of the moment a drone operator nearly pulled off a high-tech bike theft. The video, recorded in Hustopece, Moravia, Czech Republic, shows the cyclists climbing a local landmark known as Lookout Tower and taking video of a drone flying nearby. The cyclists start scrambling down the tower when the drone lowers down to the ground and picks up one of the bicycles.

Drone delivery really only seems practical for two things: take-out and organ transplants. Both are relatively light and also extremely time-sensitive. Well, experiments in flying a kidney around Baltimore in a refrigerated box have yielded positive results — which also seems promising for getting your pad thai to you in good kit.