Top technologies of the year

A look back at some of the most significant technological innovations in the news during the past year.

According to Nallatech, which specializes in commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) FPGA-based (field-programmable gate array) computing technology, while FPGAs were at one time considered too complex to implement for relatively low-volume applications such as UAVs, there has been significant growth in the availability of COTS FPGA computing solutions and design services, along with improvements in FPGA design tool capability, which together have changed the situation.

For UAVs to operate with the same level of safety as manned aircraft, an onboard detect-and-avoid (DAA) system must first detect air traffic and then determine if it is on a collision course. No onboard capability currently exists on UAVs to detect other aircraft without transponder-based systems. Active systems such as radar are expensive in terms of size, weight, and power (SWAP).