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Wing Drone Delivery
Delivery Network Drones Google Robot Drone Technology Wing Drone Delivery

Google Announces Drone Delivery Network

 


Network of Wing Delivery Services 

Several companies worldwide have been developing drone technologies designed to improve last-mile delivery by integrating them with ground transportation. Wing's ultimate goal is to create an automated logistics system that moves millions of packages daily to deliver packages to people more efficiently and safely. 

Until now, the industry has been primarily focused on drones themselves. That means it has been designing, testing, and iterating on airplanes, rather than trying to find the best way to utilize an entire fleet to deliver efficiently. The company officials assure us that the way Wing delivers its services is not the same as the way other companies do it. 

According to Wing, the efficiency of drone operations will be improved by operating them as part of a network. As part of the testing of the technology, Wing will deliver up to 1,000 packages per day to Logan, Australia, where the company is testing the technology at scale. 

Additionally, the company has begun experimenting with the delivery of goods using drones in the suburb of Lusk in Dublin. As part of the discussions between the company and the Department for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority, it said it and other companies were involved. These talks are about establishing regulations to enable goods delivery, using drones in the UK, and approving them.

"Starting with Grocery Delivery" 

In a statement, Woodworth said the delivery system would look more like the infrastructure of a modern data network than the architecture of conventional transportation. 

It started with a trial program where they delivered groceries and ready-to-eat food such as coffee in the first few weeks. For now, drone deliveries are not subject to an additional charge for consumers. 

There is no information about what the final cost of these services may be provided by the company. To remain financially viable, drone companies are expected to take on more deliveries than they are currently doing. 

In the Context of Big Data 

A member of the University of the West of England's management committee, Dr. Steve Wright said it was not surprising that Wing is among the companies trying to achieve this. In addition to working on the drones themselves, everyone is also thinking about the bigger picture. 

These drones will operate night and day for a considerable period, unlike anything that has ever been achieved.   

Regulatory issues are the first issue that is being debated at the moment. Nevertheless, there is a significant question to be addressed, how to manage and direct such a large number of robots. 

The fact that Wing and Amazon have one legacy in common - Big Data - is not just a coincidence in Dr. Steve's opinion, but rather one of a kind.
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Vulnerability
Cyber Attacks Cybersecurity Drones Vulnerability

Cyber-Spy Exploits are Being Dropped by Drones


The use of drones equipped with cyber-spying equipment was previously limited to abstract academic discussions among cybersecurity enthusiasts, but now, drones can be used in the real world to penetrate networks and steal information. 

On October 10, cybersecurity researcher Greg Linares published a Twitter thread providing a brief overview of a drone-based cyberattack he had recently witnessed while working as a freelance researcher.  

According to Mr. Gohel, the incident began when an unnamed financial company picked up unusual traffic on its network as a result of the hack. In the process of tracing the Wi-Fi signal, the con men discovered two drones on the roof and alongside, they also discovered some other activity on the network. 
 
Linares described one of the drones as being a modified DJI Phantom which carried what he called a "modified Wifi Pineapple device" and the other as being a similarly modified DJI Matrice 600 device which contained "a Raspberry Pi, batteries, GPD mini laptop, a 4G modem, and another Wi-Fi device," he explained. 

In addition to the successful cyberattack, Linares explained that the attackers were also able to access devices connected to the Atlassian Confluence site from the internal page. This was done to steal credentials and other information. During the threat hunters' investigation, they discovered that one of the drones had been damaged but was still functional. 

"In light of the limited success of this attack, it appears that once the attackers were detected, they crashed the drone as they were recovering it from the ground," Linares claimed on Twitter.

He further explained that a drone attack of this kind would probably not cost more than $15,000 to be put together, although he did not provide an exact figure. 

As he explained in his warning, attackers spend this amount of money on internal devices and do not care about destroying them. "This is the third real-world attack I have encountered from a drone in the last two years," he added. 
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Vulnerabilities and Exploits
Attacker Bugs Drones Flaws Transmitter Vulnerabilities and Exploits

Vulnerabilities in the ExpressLRS Protocol Enable the Takeover of Drones

 

The ExpressLRS protocol for radio-controlled (RC) drones is vulnerable to flaws that might allow device takeover. Researchers warn of vulnerabilities in the ExpressLRS protocol for radio-controlled (RC) drones, which may be exploited to take control of unmanned vehicles. 

ExpressLRS is a high-performance open-source radio control link that achieves maximum range while maintaining minimal latency. An attacker may take control of any receiver by watching the communication from the connected transmitter, according to a recently released alert. After watching traffic from a similar transmitter, it is feasible to take control of any receiver using merely a normal ExpressLRS compatible transmitter. 

An attacker may be able to extract a portion of the identity shared by the receiver and transmitter due to security flaws in the binding process. The examination of this section, along with a brute force attack, can lead to the discovery of the remaining part of the identifier. Once the attacker has acquired the whole identifier, it may use a transmitter to take control of the craft holding the receiver without knowing the binding phrase. This attack scenario is software-capable when utilising typical ExpressLRS compliant hardware. 

“ExpressLRS uses a ‘binding phrase’, built into the firmware at compile time to bind a transmitter to a receiver. ExpressLRS states that the binding phrase is not for security, it is anti-collision.” reads a bulletin published by NccGroup. 

“Due to weaknesses related to the binding phase, it is possible to extract part of the identifier shared between the receiver and transmitter. A combination of analysis and brute force can be utilised to determine the remaining portion of the identifier. Once the full identifier is discovered, it is then possible to use an attacker’s transmitter to control the craft containing the receiver with no knowledge of the binding phrase. This is possible entirely in software using standard ExpressLRS compatible hardware.” 

The ExpressLRS protocol encrypts the phrase using the hashing technique MD5, which is known to be cryptographically weak. The experts discovered that the "sync packets" that are transferred at regular intervals between transmitter and receiver for synchronisation reasons leak a significant portion of the binding phrase's unique identity (UID). The remaining portion may be determined via brute-force assaults or by watching packets over the air without brute-forcing the sequences. 

The advisory read, “Three weaknesses were identified, which allow for the discovery of the four bytes of the required UID to take control of the link. Two of these issues relate to the contents of the sync packet.”

“(i) The sync packet contains the final three bytes of the UID. These bytes are used to verify that the transmitter has the same binding phrase as the receiver, to avoid a collision. Observation of a single sync packet, therefore, gives 75% of the bytes required to take over the link. (ii) The CRC initialiser uses the final two bytes of the UID sent with the sync packet, making it extremely easy to create a CRC check.” 

The third weakness occurs in the FHSS sequence generation. 

“Due to weaknesses in the random number generator, the second 128 values of the final byte of the 4-byte seed produce the same FHSS sequence as the first 128,” the advisory concludes. 

Experts advised the users against transmitting the UID via the control connection while adding that the data used to construct the FHSS sequence should not be sent wirelessly. They also suggest that the random number generator be improved by employing a more secure approach or modifying the present algorithm to deal with repeated sequences.
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UK
CAA Drones EASA Technology UK

New Laws for Drone Users Across Europe and UK

 

As of December 31, 2020, the new European Drone Regulations spread out by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will come into power, making the way for an epoch of harmonization across the 27 EU Member States as well as Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, and the UK. The set of new rules clarify where drones can be flown, just making it simpler to follow/trace the owners. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) issued the rules, they have anticipated that there will be an escalation in the number of drone clients after they eliminated the differentiation among recreational and business applications.

At first, these drones didn't need to be enlisted because of their sub-250g weight, yet this prerequisite has now been extended out to all drones with a camera. This implies proprietors of those drones, or any with a camera, should enlist their drone with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and get an Operator ID. All drone proprietors in the UK will require two IDs before flying outside: the Flyer ID, which includes breezing through a short online assessment, and an Operator ID, which means enrolling your drone at an expense of £9 every year. 

Three new classifications will consider the drone you have and where you mean to fly it, this will, at last, make it workable for novice drone pilots without a qualification. These categories are Open, Specific, and Certified. These have various prerequisites as far as training is concerned and the kinds of drones you can utilize. Recreational flying will be covered by the 'Open' category. 

Open category: The Open Category is for what are viewed as generally low-risk flights and will apply to the sort of consumer drones that most of the novice drone pilots use. It further has three subcategories – A1, A2, and A3.
 • A1 - drones weighing under 250g (0.55lb) can be flown over individuals. 
 • A2 - drones weighing more than 250g however under 2kg should be flown at least 50m (164ft) away from individuals. 
 • A3 - drones weighing more than 2kg should be flown well away from individuals. 

Specific category: The Specific Category covers drone flights that represent more danger than the 'Open' Category and requires a degree of planning, similar to all current commercial activities. The CAA will distribute a bunch of pre-characterized situations and danger assessments.

Certified category: The Certified Category identifies with complex tasks, for example, those where parcels or even individuals are conveyed by the drone. This category is profoundly trained professionals and won't apply to the vast majority of drone pilots.

Elliott Corke, director of Global Drone Training, said, “We would encourage people to read the manual and practise somewhere safe first.”
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Technology
Coronavirus Drones Smart City Technology

The Need for Smart Cities in the Post-Pandemic World


Due to coronavirus pandemic, there has been a lockdown worldwide, and it seems, the streets and the normal life has been put on hold. While many people have complained about not getting to go out and enjoy, some people have also cherished their times at home and say it is a good thing, as it has caused the betterment of the environment and planet earth. Going through this current phase, the common question is, 'What happens after all this ends?' And more importantly, 'The concept of smart cities making these improvements permanent.'


This lockdown showed the importance of technology during times of crisis and has raised the question about the future of smart cities. In Singapore, drones were used to ensure people followed the social distancing protocol. Whereas in North Carolina, drones had delivered emergency health supplies to hospitals and people at home. Daniel Rus, a scientist at MIT, and her lab designed a robot used to disinfect food banks in Boston.

In an interview with BBC News, Daniel said that robots are playing a vital role in the fight against the pandemic. According to her, robots might play an essential role in the future when smart cities are built. In the present times, the cities gather data from sensors all over the city, such as traffic lights, lamp posts, or cameras. The data obtained helps determine the AQI (Air Quality Index) and the traffic situation in an area, all of which allows the human life. The lockdown made people realize the importance of such data. For instance, for the first time, people want to know the transport that has come in and went out of the city. They want to know whether the people around them are healthy or not.

Therefore, the post coronavirus world should consider whether they need such technology or not; that is, should the electric vehicles mandated in cities as they offer a better environment? Companies are starting to think about the "Work from Home" concept, as they have realized the additional resources and money that is spent on offices.
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