Electronic Design Weekly: July 27, 2026 - Drone Design
In This Issue
- Editorial: Editorial Title
- Featured Content
- New Products
- Exploring Electronic Design TechXchanges
- Multimedia on ElectronicDesign
- Drone Design
- Editor's Choice: From the ElectronicDesign Archives
- Editor's Weekly Picks
- Illustrated Engineering
- Electronic Design Word of the Week
- New in Electronic Design's Member Library
- More Electronic Design Weekly
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Editorial: 'Tis the Season of Drone Challenges
Some interesting developments on drones have emerged lately, to where I think it's appropriate to call it a season rather than a one-time event.
The wars in Ukraine and Lebanon have clearly shown how drones have been quickly adopted as significant, strategic, weapons of war, easily trading a machine's existence for that of a human being. The mere fact that a $2,000 "toy" can pop the turret off a $5M army tank, or take out a helicopter, Shahed drone, or a cruise missile, has tilted the outcome of occupation by smooth brains with deep pockets in favor of intellectuals. Heck, they even favor gamers who have volunteered to remote pilot these drones to protect their homeland.
Wars are not won by bloodshed, but by economics: "I'll take $1.5B and be a winner" is smooth brain thinking at its peak. To top it off, the smooth brains want the intellectuals to supply them with...drones. Sen. Graham recently visited a drone factory, Skyfall, in Ukraine, describing it as “state-of-the-art” and “far more advanced than anyone else on the planet.” Shameful for U.S. engineers.
In an effort to cultivate advanced drone technology in the U.S., DARPA announced its Lift Challenge back in October 2025, which we had covered in this article. Next week, a selection of competitors will be flying in a competition to see who can demonstrate the highest payload weight to unladen airframe weight ratio to win $6.5M in prizes. I entered this challenge, formally, in January and have been working on it, after-hours, ever since. Meanwhile, the FCC is looking to now close the importation door to drones over 55 lb. as well as to sprayers. 'Tis the season.
To read more about the FCC ban, the DARPA LIFT challenge, and some of its designs, click here.
Editor's Choice: From the ElectronicDesign Archives
These articles were chosen by the editors at ElectronicDesign that complement the new articles above. They’re included in our regular newsletters.
Bill Wong's Picks of the Week
This week's theme is drone design so I though I would provide some links to development links and platforms you might find useful.
- Dronecode Foundation - The Linux Foundation project for autonomous aerial robotics. Includes these open source projects
- PX4 Autopilot - flight control software for unmanned vehicles
- Pixhawk - open standard for drone hardware
- MAVLink - lightweight messaging protocol for intra and inter drone communication
- QGroundControl - ground station application for mission control and planning
- ArduPilot - autopilot software, it can work with MAVLink and ROS 2
From the Inventors Comics Collection
The DARPA Lift Challenge FAQs are here, FYI.
San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) has come to a close. I was inspired by my time at SDCC to draw this confrontation. AI is encroaching on the world’s oldest, still successful, print media – comic books. The artists fear the tech. The rapid adoption of the technology is having an impact on all of us. I explore the idea on my road to solving this conundrum, follow this link.
Or see my whole Engineering on Friday cartoon catalog here.
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About the Author
William G. Wong
Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF
I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.
You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our template and send to me along with a signed release form.
Check out my blog, AltEmbedded on Electronic Design, as well as his latest articles on this site that are listed below.
You can visit my social media via these links:
- AltEmbedded on Electronic Design
- Bill Wong on Facebook
- @AltEmbedded on Twitter
- Bill Wong on LinkedIn
I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.
I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.
Roger Engelke Jr.
Managing Editor - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF
Roger manages the websites and print issues for Electronic Design and Microwaves &RF.
Cabe Atwell
Technology Editor, Electronic Design
Cabe is a Technology Editor for Electronic Design.
Engineer, Machinist, Cartoonist, Maker, Writer. A graduate Electrical Engineer actively plying his expertise in the industry and at his company, Gunhead. When not designing/building, he creates a steady torrent of projects and content in the media world. Many of his projects and articles are online at element14 & SolidSmack, industry-focused work at EETimes & EDN, and offbeat articles at Make Magazine. Currently, you can find him hosting webinars and contributing to Electronic Design and Machine Design.
Cabe is an electrical engineer, design consultant and author with 25 years’ experience. His most recent book is “Essential 555 IC: Design, Configure, and Create Clever Circuits”
Cabe writes the Engineering Life & Engineering on Friday blog on Electronic Design.
See Cabe's cartoons & comic strips here.
James Morra
Senior Editor
James Morra is the senior editor for Electronic Design, covering the semiconductor industry and new technology trends, with a focus on power electronics and power management. He also reports on the business behind electrical engineering, including the electronics supply chain. He joined Electronic Design in 2015 and is based in Chicago, Illinois.
Andy Turudic
Technology Editor, Electronic Design
Andy Turudic is a Technology Editor for Electronic Design Magazine, primarily covering Analog and Mixed-Signal circuits and devices and also is Editor of ED's bi-weekly Automotive Electronics newsletter.
He holds a Bachelor's in EE from the University of Windsor (Ontario Canada) and has been involved in electronics, semiconductors, and gearhead stuff, for a bit over a half century. Andy also enjoys teaching his engineerlings at Portland Community College as a part-time professor in their EET program.
"AndyT" brings his multidisciplinary engineering experience from companies that include National Semiconductor (now Texas Instruments), Altera (Intel), Agere, Zarlink, TriQuint,(now Qorvo), SW Bell (managing a research team at Bellcore, Bell Labs and Rockwell Science Center), Bell-Northern Research, and Northern Telecom.
After hours, when he's not working on the latest invention to add to his portfolio of 16 issued US patents, or on his DARPA Challenge drone entry, he's lending advice and experience to the electric vehicle conversion community from his mountain lair in the Pacific Northwet[sic].
AndyT's engineering blog, "Nonlinearities," publishes the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month. Andy's OpEd may appear at other times, with fair warning given by the Vu meter pic. His cartoon series, "Inventors", appears each week in Electronic Design Weekly.
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