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6 Mission-critical info for UST professionals Platform one German UAV start-up Wingcopter has launched the latest version of its flagship aircraft that combines vertical and horizontal operation (writes Rory Jackson). The Wingcopter 178 is 1.321 m long, has a wingspan of 1.776 m, and now features a unique blended wing body configuration, with roughly 60% of the wing swept back, and four rotors mounted via tilt-adjustable shafts on the wings. The design is intended to combine the VTOL and hovering capabilities of a quadcopter (rotor-wing) UAV with the speed, range and dynamics of fixed-wing systems in a single platform. The key innovation is that the initial lift and forward thrust are both provided by four brushless dc electric motors, each driving a 175 mm carbon fibre propeller, with power supplied by a 22,000 mAh lithium-ion battery. Unlike other designs with rotors on nacelles at the end of either wing, the Wingcopter’s four motors are mounted relatively close to the central fuselage, at the point where the wings begin to curve back. The tilting mechanism operates through servo motors controlled by the user, enabling the tilt angle to be adjusted smoothly and continuously. Following take-off, each ‘arm’ pans 90 º until all four propellers have a vertical plane of rotation, with two positioned above the wing and two below. This positioning is said to enable perfect stability even in winds of up to 50 kph, and allows payloads outside the centre of gravity to be transported. “Our concept was originally based on the V-22 Osprey,” said Wingcopter CEO Tom Plümmer. “That was our inspiration five years ago, to take that capability and make it the size of a UAV, autonomous and with four rotors instead of two. “It eliminates the need for catapults and landing strips so we can launch the aircraft in a forest or from a vehicle or boat, say. In ‘plane mode’, we can fly far more dynamically than ordinary quadcopters; we can nosedive, and we can fly vertically without stalling.” The Wingcopter has a maximum speed of 150 kph; recommended cruising speed is 60-80 kph in fixed-wing mode. Applications include monitoring crops, powerlines, and pipelines, given its ability to cover a range of 100 km over missions of up to two hours, and being able to hover over (and descend onto) anomalies spotted via the 50-60 km live HD video downlink. It can deliver packages up to 2 kg in weight and of unwieldy shapes that might otherwise upset a UAV’s centre of gravity. Trials as a delivery platform will start soon in Kenya (where BLOS flight of UAVs is allowed), for high-speed deliveries of medical supplies such as medicines, vaccinations and blood, and to arrange emergency lab reports on samples. Testing will also begin next year for a countrywide delivery network in Rwanda on behalf of German solar energy company Mobisol. Airborne vehicles Tilt copter hits new heights October/November 2016 | Unmanned Systems Technology The latest Wingcopter UAV has a unique blended wing body