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

28 Dossier | C-Astral Bramor ppX tablet computer-oriented version of C3P intended to ease mission planning, flight control and final data preparation. Peljhan explains that it can be used for flight and mission planning at the same time, and supports multiple missions in the same flight, all with different geometries. At a trade show in 2016 he demonstrated the creation of a mission to photograph a particular group of houses that required the UAV to cover an area of a specific shape, tracing it out on the display with his fingers, adjusting the overlap and side lap, setting the altitude to 300 ft and tapping an icon to program the mission in a few seconds. Comms Microhard supplies the onboard comms system, which has demonstrated a range of 40 km with C-Astral’s tracking antennas. “Nominally the command and control range is 100 km, and there are other tactical waveform digital radios used in our systems, but we cannot disclose them,” Trost says. Telemetry and sensor data are streamed over separate links in normal applications, while for proprietary waveform applications different configurations are used. Operating frequencies depend on the area in which the UAV is to be used, with options available including 869 and 900 MHz, and 1.2, 2.3, 2.4 and 5.7 GHz. C-Astral has developed its own ground-based tracking antennas and provides a rugged tablet to run the C3P software. The data link antennas on the UAV itself are made from tungsten wire for its toughness and durability. Ground-based antenna options include C-Astral’s Radical-40X and Astraltrack. The former provides a 40 km range with the company’s video and data link transmitter, Reach-40 video TX and RX units, a 2.4 GHz line-of-sight video link and optional mobile ad hoc networking digital radios. These radios have multiple input and output capabilities to boost their capacity by exploiting multipath propagation. Astraltrack meanwhile is a smaller tracking antenna that also offers up to 40 km range for video and data over a 2.4 GHz line-of-sight link with C-Astral’s Reach-40 units. The RF capabilities enable the ground station to remain in touch with the UAV beyond line-of-sight range, and the company has integrated ADS-B transmitters to enable air traffic control to see the UAVs, even though regulations do not currently allow the use of this capability. The comms system also incorporates handshake protocols to enable handover between ground stations if necessary. The ppX can also be fitted with a VHF emergency locator beacon, for which the company supplies a handheld receiver. Sensors The ppX can fly for up to 3.5 hours and map up to 15 km 2 in a single flight. Up to two sensors can be carried at the same time, mounted using a modular, quick-change attachment system linked to the onboard electronics by a cable. Sensor options include precision red, green and blue (RGB), near-infrared (NIR) and colour infrared (CIR) cameras from Sony, multispectral sensors from MicaSense, a laser gas detection system developed jointly by Boreal December/January 2017 | Unmanned Systems Technology Propeller: Aeronaut Solar panels: Alta Devices Gas sensor: Boreal Laser Thermal imager: FLIR Systems Autopilot: Lockheed Martin Procerus Technologies Multispectral cameras: MicaSense Onboard comms: Microhard Hyperspectral imager: Rikola GNSS receiver: Septentrio RGB, NIR and CIR cameras: Sony Inertial measurement unit: VectorNav Gas sensor software: Ventus Geospatial Key suppliers The laser mass spectrometer sensor is sensitive enough to identify gases and count individual molecules as they pass though the laser beam that runs between special winglets