Tethered Air

This innovative robot tech has been used for everything from bridge construction to paint-stripping aircraft, and NASA once even considered basing an all-terrain lunar rover on it. Uncover more in the NIST Time Capsule: https://www.nist.gov/nist-time-capsule/fixed-life-nist-help/helping-clean-disaster-inside-chernobyl-mega-tomb.

Amazon Just Received a License to Sell Ocean Freight Flexport has obtained information that Amazon China has received a license to operate as an ocean freight forwarder in the United States.

Crazy Falling Man on a Loose Rope Stunt Shows How Physics Works Here’s the idea: A man is going to be attached to a rope and then fall. The rope is totally loose and not attached to anything but there will be a weight rigged to the opposite end of the rope (the other end holds the man, remember). What happens? Does the man fall straight down? Nope! The rope swings around and tightens itself around the pole saving the man from plummeting to the ground. Duh.

At the AUVSI conference in 2013, Tethered Air presented a white paper on the concept of catching large UAS from small surface combatants, enabled by a towed parafoil - with a single-tethered system being the simplest iteration. We also suggested a dual use for that system as an ISR and comm relay position, and DARPA's TERN and TALONS projects have done exactly those two things. DARPA is now funding the Gremlins project, considered by many to be a "UAS mothership". In that same presentation, we also showed a related system that would enable parasitic UAS operations from unmodified cargo aircraft. Atmospherically-suspended cabled robotics have enormous potential in both the military and commercial worlds; we see an extraordinary future.

Towed Airborne Lift of Naval Systems (TALONS) Prototype Demonstration DARPA’s Towed Airborne Lift of Naval Systems (TALONS) research effort recently demonstrated a prototype of a low-cost, fully automated parafoil system design...

Johnny 5 is ALIVE!!!!!

Wiggle that healthy bot.

Great day at the Maker Faire today! Met hundreds of makers and other enthusiasts who were all very interested in Tethered Air!

Tethered Air will be at Maker Faire Atlanta this Saturday... it's free! Looks like beautiful weather too. We'll be running our robots, and talking about our recent updates. Come see something awesome!

Maker Faire Atlanta 2014 Attendance is Free! Why sign up for a ticket? (Other than the fact that you'll need one to get in...) Signing up for a ticket will help us gauge how many people will be coming and help us plan our exhibits and interactive displays so that we will have enough materials for everyone to take part and…

"When we look back at how we used to see the future, what’s so laughable isn't that we over-imagined what was impossible - it's that we under-imagined what was possible."

Can you imagine a 121 km (75 miles) long line of trucks on your road?

Even though it didn't fit in the Port Strategy article below, Dr. Kemmsies spoke about the great need in different places for Tethered Air. He mentioned an important grain export infrastructure problem in Brazil (described in this linked 2004 NYT article)... he said he'd seen that the truck lines waiting to get to the port had gotten up to --121 km-- long!! It's so bad that the nearby cities get severely congested, and have even tried banning the truck traffic until the federal gov't intervened.

Help me make Tethered Air a reality so we can meet these incredible needs!

The New York Times > Business > World Business > Drive for Global Markets Strains Brazil's... Every year, as the soybean harvest begins, Brazilians are given a stark reminder of the infrastructure obstacles their country must overcome if it is to establish itself as a major trader in the global marketplace.

Tethered Air discussed in the industry journal "Port Strategy". Our many thanks to Dr. Walter Kemmsies of Moffatt & Nichol (world's largest port engineering firm) for his great encouragement and contribution!

Port Strategy - Blue sky thinking Balloons and robotised box parks could soon be helping ports compete, writes Stevie Knight