A local company has unveiled the nation’s first indigenous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for photography, hoping to break into a market that so far has been monopolized by imported products.
The AI Rider, a system based on a six-rotor UAV weighing about 1.45kg, is highly competitive because of its price and after-sales service, including a training program that is easily available to domestic customers, said Clark Lin, vice president of Gang Yu Corp.
After its introduction during Secutech, an international security exhibition being held in Taipei this week, importers from countries such as the US, Japan, Russia and Thailand have shown interest in becoming distributors, Lin said.
The remote-controlled aerial photography vehicle is said to be entirely developed in Taiwan and made with domestic components. It can carry a payload, such as a video camera, of up to 400g and can climb to an altitude of 550m.
It can withstand a sustained wind speed of up to 10m per second, or an instantaneous wind speed of no more than 15m per second.
With a fully charged battery, the drone can fly for up to 13 minutes with a 250g payload and can reach a 750m radius from its handler.
The company said the AI Rider is more competitively priced than imported products with similar specifications. Its price of US$25,000 is a seventh of the asking price for foreign imports.
The AI Rider has already been used by Taiwan’s military and academic institutions for surveillance and geographic surveying. Now, it can also be used for newsgathering, recreation and search and rescue operations.
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
Nipah virus infection is to be officially listed as a category 5 notifiable infectious disease in Taiwan in March, while clinical treatment guidelines are being formulated, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. With Nipah infections being reported in other countries and considering its relatively high fatality rate, the centers on Jan. 16 announced that it would be listed as a notifiable infectious disease to bolster the nation’s systematic early warning system and increase public awareness, the CDC said. Bangladesh reported four fatal cases last year in separate districts, with three linked to raw date palm sap consumption, CDC Epidemic Intelligence
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
RSS