In a step to strengthen the drone ecosystem of India, the finance ministry has given the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) approval to set up a Drones Directorate. Currently, the Directorate consists of eight DGCA officials.
The Directorate, while primarily focusing on managing the drones’ ecosystem in the country, will also look into delays in …

A Finnish city is using an AI specialist to digitise its public buildings and help it become carbon neutral.
Hyvinkään Lämpövoima, the district heating company owned by the city of Hyvinkää (situated 30 miles north of Helsinki), has engaged AI specialist Nuuka to digitise the city’s public buildings.
Hyvinkää has a target of reducing its greenhouse gas …

TomTom (TOM2), the leading independent location technology specialist, has announced that its full stack of navigation components – maps, connected navigation, and real-time traffic services – has been chosen by Mitsubishi Motors to power the new Eclipse Cross’ infotainment system. The restyled SUV is the latest Mitsubishi model to be equipped with TomTom’s automotive-grade solution; …

The Galileo Service was affected from Dec 14, 00:00 UTC by an anomaly in the time determination function of the ground segment of the system.
This resulted in signals flagged as MARGINAL (SISA=NAPA) for all satellites. During this period, pseudorange errors in excess of nominal performance were experienced by user receivers.
The system was reconfigured and restored …

The U.S. Space Force has awarded Lockheed Martin a $511 million contract for two new GPS 3F satellites. The contract was finalised on October 7th, on the basis of a 2018 deal.
GPS 3F, the latest version of the satellites, offer global positioning, navigation, and timing services. They are also equipped with a completely digital navigation …

The Earth observation satellite FalconEye was successfully launched from the European Spaceport (CSG) in Kourou, French Guiana, on December 2nd, by an Arianespace Soyuz rocket.
Owned and operated by the United Arab Emirates, FalconEye was developed by Airbus Defence and Space and Thales Alenia Space as co-prime contractors.
The FalconEye system will support the needs of the …

FlytBase, Inc has announced the release of hardware-agnostic cloud-based drone APIs, enabling enterprises to easily integrate drones with their business applications. Drones are rapidly transitioning into fully-automated commercial tools that are being deployed for a range of applications, e.g., aerial security, delivery, public-safety, inspections, surveys.
With increasing levels of automation, scale, and sophistication of these use-cases, …

With the aim of increasing the production capacity and competitiveness of local companies, the Brazilian government has announced the launch of a national innovation network focused on artificial intelligence (AI). The announcement of the AI Network follows launch of Artificial Intelligence Center (C4AI), Brazil’s largest research facility focused on AI.
Developed as the result of cooperation between …

The Indian government has invited proposals for the manufacture of 10 lakh receiver chips that have GPS and NavIC, in an attempt to improve the overall signal availability of positioning systems, and increase the use of the indigenous positioning system.
In a bid titled, “Request for Proposal Design, Manufacture, Supply and Maintain Integrated NavIC and GPS …

A new accurate height of Mount Everest has been announced to the world and a University of Otago academic has been instrumental in supporting the Nepalese surveyors achieve that ambition.
Geodesist Dr Chris Pearson of Otago’s School of Surveying led New Zealand’s MFAT Head of Mission Fund project by providing technical expertise and training to Nepal’s …