Unmanned Systems Technology 012 | AutoNaut USV | Connectors | Unmanned Ground Vehicles | Cobra Aero A33i | Intel Falcon 8+ UAV | Propellers | CES Show report

62 T he expansion of UAVs among commercial and civil operators becomes less constrained by cost and functionality with each passing year. As their place within the emerging Internet of Things seems to accumulate more and more theoretical roles, such as communications provision or persistent data collection, the question on the minds of regulators is not what unmanned vehicles can do but whether they are inherently safe enough to be trusted to fly or loiter in large numbers in civil airspace. To that end the Intel Falcon 8+, built by Ascending Technologies, which was acquired by Intel in 2016, has been designed with redundancies to guard against almost every risk posed by operating in cities or industrial zones. In these environments, loss of comms, power or navigation can pose a critical risk to crowds and property below the UAV as well as the craft itself and its payload. Overview The Falcon 8+ octocopter has a maximum take-off weight of 2.8 kg and a payload weight of 800 g. Careful use of carbon composite and sintered materials has contributed to its notable weight-to- payload ratio. As Jan Stumpf, director of Ascending Technologies, explains, “You see a lot of approaches where people opt for a really big UAV platform just to be flexible in terms of what it can carry and operate, but that means a lot of additional effort in handling, from issues with transportation logistics to being unable to take it on an aircraft because of restrictions on carrying batteries above 100 Watt-hours. We avoid that by downsizing the UAV as far as possible without sacrificing sensor performance.” The craft is propelled by eight brushless dc electric motors, while power is stored and supplied by two Intel Powerpack 4000 systems, each of which uses a three-cell 6250 mAh lithium-polymer battery, allowing for a flight time of 16 to 26 minutes depending on environmental, payload and battery Safety in numbers February/March 2017 | Unmanned Systems Technology The Falcon 8+ is notable for the multiple redundancies in its systems. Rory Jackson explains the technologies that underpin them