USAF Autonomous Drone Skyborg Completes First Flight

Will continue to see more of this effort. 

US Air Force autonomous Drone Skyborg completes first flight,  by Sarah Katz , Tech Xplore

Last month, the United States Air Force successfully test flew an unnamed aerial vehicle (UAV) called Skyborg, operating on an autonomous hardware/software suite, for the very first time.

The military aims for this UAV to fuel collaboration among manned and unmanned aircraft. For its first test run, the Skyborg suite flew aboard a Kratos UTAP-22 Mako air vehicle in the first step of what's known as the Autonomous Attritable Aircraft Experimentation Campaign.  ... "

So what is an 'Attritable' weapon?  Reusable in general .....  

  ' ... Soaring unit costs for frontline military aircraft that have effectively reduced the size of U.S. fleets is forcing a shift to so-called “attritable” designs emphasizing lower-cost unmanned aircraft that can be reused at least several times with minimal maintenance.

The design philosophy—an apparent reference to the term “attrit,” as in wearing down an opponent via sustained attacks—is being driven by soaring procurement costs for modern weapons, most notably the poster child of out-of-control unit costs, the F-35 Lightning, that currently costs about $90 million a copy....' 

Ford and IBM Lead in Edgey Tech

Perhaps most surprised in Ford leading in autonomous vehicles, but having worked with them was impressed with their analytical system offerings.

IBM Leads in Quantum Computing, Ford in Driverless Car Patents

By Susan Decker  January 12, 2021, in Bloomberg

 American companies lead in technology innovations in 2020

Artificial intelligence, quantum computers and autonomous vehicles are among the fastest-growing areas of technology, with American companies often in the lead, according to a new study of U.S. patents issued over the past five years.

International Business Machines Corp. received the most patents in machine learning and quantum computers, while Ford Motor Co. is the most active in areas of vehicle navigation and control systems, according to the analysis by Fairview Research’s IFI Claims Patent Services.  ..." 

California Approves Nuro for Delivery

Have been following Nuro for some time.  With showed
an interesting looking vehicle.  Especially by the examination by Kroger.  An autonomous delivery method. 

Nuro can now charge for robot deliveries in California  By Mitchell Clark   in theVerge 

The permit allows them to charge for human-free deliveries

Nuro is now the first company in California that’s allowed to operate autonomous cars commercially (via TechCrunch). The company received a permit that allowed it to test its robots earlier this year, but this permit will allow the firm to actually charge people for the service.

According to a Medium post by Nuro’s chief legal and policy officer, the company is planning to “announce [its] first deployment in California with an established partner.” Who that partner is remains to be seen, but it’s likely to be a delivery service that can make use of Nuro’s completely driverless Prius vehicles, though the company plans on (literally) rolling out its own custom R2 bots later on.  ... "