Unmanned Systems Technology 017 | AAC HAMR UAV | Autopilots | Airborne surveillance | Primoco 500 two-stroke | Faro ScanBot UGV | Transponders | Intergeo, CUAV Expo and CUAV Show reports

90 Swiss company Wingtra showcased its WingtraOne UAV at the expo. The system is a VTOL craft that takes off and lands on its tail-end, tilting in and out of horizontal flight using two elevons across its 49 in wingspan. “The whole UAV tilts into forward flight to avoid relying on a tilt rotor mechanism, to keep the system mechanically simple. The two propellers and elevons are the only moving parts,” Justus Bamert said. “The fuselage material is a ‘sandwich’ of fibreglass composite and foam, with hollow wings to keep the overall body lightweight.” The propellers are made from German beech wood, selected following wind tunnel analysis by the company to determine a prop type and material that would work equally well in vertical/ hover mode and horizontal/fixed-wing cruise mode. The WingtraOne cruises at 34.2 mph for roughly 55 minutes (depending on the degree of speed and hover used in a mission), and weighs 9.7 lb when carrying its maximum payload of 1.8 lb. The latest payload from the company uses a Sony RX1R II, a 42 MP full-frame camera, for covering about 500 acres per flight at a 400 ft altitude. It has a resolution of 0.6 in per pixel, with a full- frame sensor and a 35 mm lens. Delair (formerly Delair-Tech) showed its UX11 UAV for commercial mapping and other UAS-related operations. “The UX11 is a marriage of sorts between our previous UX5 aircraft airframe and the lessons learnt in BVLOS flight and comms from the DT18 (detailed in UST 4, Autumn 2015) and the DT26,” said Michael O’Sullivan. “It is hand-launched, and operates autonomously for up to an hour. We have a 21 MP RGB sensor, global shutter and the capacity to fly with 3G cellular connectivity, which is good for redundancy or in hilly terrains where interference may occur.” PPK can be enabled with the onboard GNSS-IMU to achieve geo-stamping of mapping images to a 1 cm accuracy. The 1.4 kg airframe body uses a flying wing-type shape, with wing tips to reduce drag in flight. It has a cruising speed of 54 kph and an RF comms range of 3 km when not using 4G or 3G. Field Of View was exhibiting its products for mapping missions that require geotagging with COTS cameras. The GeoSnap Pro and GeoSpan Express both weigh 100 g and draw 0.1 A of power from input voltages of 5-28 V DC. For GNSS, the former uses a VectorNav VN-200 and has a data rate of 50 Hz, while the latter uses a u-blox M8 at 10 Hz, and access to the GLONASS constellation as well as GPS. “We integrate cameras from the likes of Sony and Nikon to create standalone turnkey mapping payloads,” Kaci Lemler said. “We’re also developing a version with PPK processing, which will give centimetre-level accuracy in geotags. “We handle the geotagging through the camera’s flash hotshoe. We have an onboard GPS system and then, when the camera takes a picture, we recognise it through a signal in the hotshoe. “We tag the images and save the tags in a text file on board, which can be brought directly into stitching software such as Pix4D or Agisoft, or embedded into the Exif of the images post-flight.” Greene Rubber Company has developed a new range of components for shock and vibration isolation in UAV payloads. The isolators on display included the company’s UAV3001 series, which weigh 0.03 oz and can handle a load December/January 2018 | Unmanned Systems Technology The WingtraOne VTOL craft is designed to be mechanically simple