Also: MOSAIC Town Hall, Lockheed Martin Venus, Electric Aircraft Cooling, Korea Taps Archer The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office is at the front end of a year-long AI policing experiment, putting a completely autonomous, $200,000 squad car equipped with thermal imaging drones to the test. The so-called Police Unmanned Ground (PUG) Patrol Partner was developed and donated by Policing Lab and Perrone Robotics. The SUV comes on a Ford Explorer platform, fitted with 360-degree cameras, thermal sensors, license plate readers, and a rooftop drone dock. U.S. National Parks have prohibited the use of drones for any reason – absent a special permit – since 2014, yet increasing numbers of drone pilots have ignored the ban, and there are some reports that it’s gotten noticeably worse since the government shutdown, although that is not entirely clear. Conducting illegal drone flights can lead to penalties of up to $5,000 and six months in jail. With some applicability to the UAV segment, more than a decade of hard work, legal setbacks, and community advocacy has finally come to fruition, with the Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certification (MOSAIC) legislation officially becoming a final rule on October 22, 2025. Since around three-quarters of the entire general aviation fleet now falls under the sport aviation category, we can confidently say that MOSAIC was well worth the wait. All this — and MORE in today’s episode of Airborne-NextGen!!!
