Drones, Risk, and Perpetual Force

Perpetual convertible bonds with credit risk

A convertible bond is a security that the holder can convert into a specified number of underlying shares. We enrich the standard model by introducing some default risk of the issuer. Once default has occured payments stop immediately. In the context of a reduced form model with infinite time horizon driven by a Brownian motion, analytical formulae for the no-arbitrage price of this American co...

In vivo recording of aerodynamic force with an aerodynamic force platform: from drones to birds

Flapping wings enable flying animals and biomimetic robots to generate elevated aerodynamic forces. Measurements that demonstrate this capability are based on experiments with tethered robots and animals, and indirect force calculations based on measured kinematics or airflow during free flight. Remarkably, there exists no method to measure these forces directly during free flight. Such in vivo...

Volatility and dividend risk in perpetual American options

American options are financial instruments that can be exercised at any time before expiration. In this paper we study the problem of pricing this kind of derivatives within a framework in which some of the properties —volatility and dividend policy— of the underlaying stock can change at a random instant of time, but in such a way that we can forecast the final conditions. These peculiar assum...

Kant's Perpetual Peace and World Government

Directing Cinematographic Drones

Quadrotor drones equipped with high quality cameras have rapidely raised as novel, cheap and stable devices for filmmakers. While professional drone pilots can create aesthetically pleasing videos in short time, the smooth – and cinematographic – control of a camera drone remains challenging for most users, despite recent tools that either automate part of the process or enable the manual desig...