Unmanned Systems Technology 011 | C-Astral Bramor ppX | IMUs | Autonomous farming | UAV Turbines UTP50R | London Show report | Advanced materials | Las Vegas Expo report

20 R evolutionary accuracy in photogrammetric survey work is the raison d’etre of Slovenian UAV manufacturer C-Astral’s Bramor ppX, successor to its rTK model and a member of a growing family of small, blended wing body (BWB) electric UAVs aimed at professional niches in the civil and military arenas. The revolutionary aspect stems from the potential to replace the expensive and time-consuming large- scale ground control points (GCPs) and total station survey methods that dominate engineering, and cadastral (land taxation-related) and topographic survey operations with high-resolution, geospatially registered imagery of centimetric precision that does not need GCPs. This imagery is captured by sensors linked to a survey-grade GNSS receiver with its positional accuracy refined by post-processed kinematic software as an alternative to real-time kinematic (RTK) methods, in which data link constraints can severely limit the size of the area being surveyed. The Bramor ppX has a 2.3 m wingspan and the central module is 67 cm long, although the UAV itself is 96 cm long Peter Donaldson takes a close look at the development of the Bramor ppX, which heralds a new level of precision in surveying applications Aerial recon December/January 2017 | Unmanned Systems Technology Artist’s impression of the Bramor ppX LRS in flight showing the lightweight solar panels from Alta Devices, whose gallium arsenide technology adds two hours of flight time for less than 2 oz in extra weight