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

92 Intelligent Energy attended the CUAV Show to display its hydrogen fuel cell system, which was developed with lightweight materials in mind in order to fit the SWaP requirements for micro-UAS platforms. The system weighs about 750 g and can produce 650 W of continuous power. The cylindrical hydrogen tank can be flexible in size depending on the UAV and the developer’s desired flight time. “Our partners have achieved two hours of flight on multi-rotor craft with 3 litres of hydrogen gas storage on board, in applications that might be aimed at long missions requiring doubling-back, such as mapping or warehouse monitoring,” said Joanna Richart. The energy density of hydrogen fuel cells ordinarily makes them suitable only for MALE-class fixed-wing UAVs, as it is easier for such systems to carry the necessary amounts of hydrogen to achieve the endurance benefits. Intelligent Energy’s techniques for increasing the energy density enable hobby-grade multi-rotor commercial UAVs to integrate the technology: its smallest system provides in the region of 300 Wh/kg with a 1.5 litre gas cylinder. Embention and NTT Data have announced a collaboration to use the former’s Veronte autopilot system in the latter’s unmanned air traffic management (UTM) system. “The autopilot will send all the data on the navigation sensors to our cloud-based server, which is persistently connected to NTT Data’s server,” Embention’s Javier Espuch told us. “Through the NTT server, the user can communicate with civil aviation authorities to allow them to see navigation, positioning and heading information about the UAV in real time.” To accomplish the UTM integration, and allow commercial users to control fleets of UAS in BVLOS operations via the internet (regulations permitting), Embention has updated the Veronte with a 4G comms processor to enable the cloud connectivity. “We sourced the smallest 4G chip we could find, and also installed an eSIM to save users having to use a SIM card of their own. Using the autopilot code is enough to enable internet access,” Espuch noted. Instrumentation technology supplier Techni Measure was showing a range of inertial sensors from MicroStrain Sensing Systems for attitude reference systems, vertical reference units and inertial navigation systems. The inertial sensors offer 1 kHz sampling rates, digital output, and are available as OEM non-enclosed versions for custom integrations. “The protocol we use is MIP [MicroStrain Inertial Protocol], which was developed to be simple to interpret,” explained Techni Measure’s Andrew Ramage. “It is proprietary, but it was designed with the aim of making the Lord MicroStrain line of inertial sensors easy to configure so that they stream the specific data a user wants for their application – be it attitude estimation, pressure altitude or location if they’re using one with an integrated GNSS receiver.” The company’s 3DM-GX5-45 sensor comes with GNSS and an extended Kalman filter installed for onboard processing, along with a gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer – all with three axes – for outputting information on position, attitude and altitude for UAV navigation and guidance. The system weighs 20 g, measures 44.2 x 36.6 x 11 mm, is tested to withstand operations from -45 to +80 C, and can be interfaced through an RS- 232 connector or via USB. Satlink shared some details at the show about its server and satellite connectivity solutions. “We’re an ‘X-listed’ company, so all our servers are protected. We have them in classified locations, and we have contracts with the UK government that require secure servers,” Edward Hawkeswood explained.   The company also displayed the Cobham Aviator UAV 200 satcom unit from Cobham Antenna Systems, which December/January 2018 | Unmanned Systems Technology Show reports | Intergeo, CUAV Expo and CUAV Show Intelligent Energy’s technology enables hydrogen fuel cells to be used in micro-UAVs Commercial UAV Show 2017