Following its agreement to acquire unmanned aircraft developer Aurora Flight Sciences, Boeing has invested in autonomous navigation specialist Near Earth Autonomy through its venture capital arm HorizonX.

"It’s hard to pinpoint the moment Pittsburgh began its three-decade climb back from the dead, but Red Whittaker marks the comeback from the instant he heard the ominous clack of a door closing behind him when he entered a secured building near the melted heart of Three Mile Island back in 1983."

"Calling autonomous flight “the next frontier”, Dr. Sanjiv Singh hopes his keynote address on the topic at RoboBusiness 2013 will get people talking."

Previous unmanned helicopters, like the Boeing A160 Hummingbird, could operate only in obstacle-free, pre-mapped environments.

"Along with the jetpack, the flying car tops the list of classic science-fiction imaginings that lead legions of fans to ask -- why don't we have this yet?"

"With Sanjiv Singh's help, perhaps a Black Hawk downed won't be so deadly. Technology he developed with a team from Piasecki Aircraft Corp. in Delaware County enabled a full-sized helicopter last month to fly unmanned, choose a landing site in unknown territory and land itself."

A Carnegie Mellon University professor has helped develop the first-ever full-sized helicopter to take off, avoid obstacles in flight, and land in uncharted terrain -- all of it unmanned and with the helicopter making decisions on its own.

"A full-size autonomous helicopter recently flew past low-level obstacles and safely touched down on its own. Is this autonomous vehicle a small step or a giant leap in taking some of the dangers out of medevac rescues?"

Flying low to the ground is a pilot’s nightmare: buildings, trees, and power cables all threaten to put an early end to the flight. But now the first large robotic aircraft able to fly at low levels and weave around such obstacles has been developed by US engineers.