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73 type GPU chips, to go into smaller boxes suitable for weight-constrained aerial vehicles, such as maritime survey UAVs or HALE-type systems.” The EB4000 is housed in a 6.44 x 5 x 4.5 in, IP65-rated, 6061 aluminium alloy chassis, and consumes 78 W of power on a 12 V supply. Thermal management is via a conduction cooling system using head pipes and heat spreaders connecting to the finned walls on the outside of the housing. Up to four, 1 Tbyte solid-state SATA 2.0 drives can be integrated, while handling temperatures between -40 and +71 C during operation. Sensor gimbal manufacturer Merio UAV Payload Systems attended Eurosatory to unveil four new gimbals in its Temis series of EO/IR systems, which are designed to cater to a wide range of airborne and ground vehicles as well as capability requirements. “The biggest of these, the Temis XL19, integrates a 100 mm lens on the wide FoV IR camera, so you can detect vehicles up to 5 km away. It also has a laser rangefinder and laser pointer, alongside the daylight camera and telescopic IR sensor,” Remi Plenet said. The XL19 weighs 2.4 kg, and typically consumes 14 W (up to a maximum of 24 W). The second-largest of the new payloads, the XL18, weighs 2.2 kg and is stated to consume power at the same rate as the XL19. The other two gimbals are the XL16 and XL14. The XL16 weighs 1.8 kg, while the XL14 weighs 1.3 kg, and they consume an average of 12 W and 10 W respectively. All four payloads generate IR imagery at 640 x 480 pixels, use direct drive brushless DC motors for torque provision in 360 º pan and tilt, and all can integrate laser rangefinders and pointers. Huber+Suhner unveiled its new Spuma RS cable, for flexible, low-loss connections and flame retardancy, principally for military unmanned air, land and naval systems. “Normally you have a trade-off when selecting a cable: you can pick a low- loss product using a solid-wire central conductor, or a flexible product using a stranded-wire central conductor,” said Mathias Vetter. “We’ve developed and patented a rotary swaging technology to produce low-loss cables that are still flexible.” In the rotary swaging process, a copper stranded-wire central conductor is mechanically compressed on all sides to turn its rope-like exterior into a ‘flattened’ cylindrical outer surface. That enables a straight electrical signal passage with higher frequencies, resulting in lower losses compared to a standard stranded centre conductor. That is due to the skin effect (in which AC distribution within the wire leads to the current density being greatest at the outer circumference, or skin). This advantage is achieved while retaining the flexibility of a stranded-wire conductor. The Spuma RS has an operating frequency of up to 6 GHz, and comes in 6.17 or 10.3 mm diameters. Both use a foamed polyethylene dielectric, an aluminium-foil inner shield, a tin-plated copper braid as an outer shield, and a thermoplastic polyurethane jacket. ThirdEye Systems has created aEye, an artificial neural network- based analytics software program for UAVs with thermal camera payloads to autonomously identify and categorise people, objects and potential threats. “It allows faster, more efficient security and emergency surveys. If people are trapped in ruined buildings or desolate locations, operators must fly while monitoring live imagery under great stress,” Yoel Motola explained, “Our system can automatically distinguish the thermal signatures of humans from those of other objects, regardless of whether they are lying down, crouching or climbing, and tell the operator the signatures’ GNSS locations. It will also mark out swathes of an area that have already been optically surveyed and therefore don’t need to be examined again or any further.” The software was developed using multiple layers of neural networks (including a convolutional neural network for the machine learning aspects) and the company’s own database of images, to train the system to identify human signatures from just a single frame. “That way, you don’t need to actively operate a live video feed. The payload runs autonomously, and can be fitted to small, inexpensive UAVs, because even very basic thermal photography payloads can run this software,” Motola said. Further test flights of aEye are currently being conducted using a military-grade VTOL platform named Colugo, and the software in its present form is currently running on various DJI platforms. Milton Innovation, a company founded and staffed by former French soldiers to design, adapt and train for solutions aimed at security and surveillance services, showcased its Long Range Observational (LRO) UAV. The LRO is a VTOL-transition platform, designed primarily for military use. The craft ascends using four upward-facing rotors, situated at the forward ends and midpoints of two longitudinal booms Unmanned Systems Technology | August/September 2018 The 2.4 kg Temis XL19 is a new addition to Merio UAV Payload Systems’ gimbal range