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69 Insitu unveiled the ScanEagle3, its newest UAV and its first designed for commercial, non-ITAR use. It is 2.5 m long with a 4 m wingspan, and the wings can be adjusted to alter the aircraft’s centre of gravity to accommodate different payloads of up to 9.1 kg. “Doubling the payload of ScanEagle, carrying multiple payloads simultaneously, and seamless integration of existing payloads were key aims with the ScanEagle3,” said Mark Bauman. “Existing launch-and-recovery equipment is leveraged for it as well.” The N20 engine, co-developed with Orbital (see UST 8, June/July 2016), is integrated into the UAV and runs on JP-5 or JP-8 fuel. Insitu also announced the integration of a customised TK-5 Firewatch payload from Overwatch Imaging onto the ScanEagle system to conduct real- time mapping for wildfire management, disaster relief and other missions. The system is powered by GPU-accelerated processors and computer vision software to analyse captured near-infrared and thermal infrared imagery in real time. Sierra Olympic unveiled its new ultra-miniature Ventus OGI (optical gas imaging) thermal camera core designed for detecting hydrocarbon gases such as methane, butane and propane. A narrow bandpass filter inside the IDCA (integrated dewar cooler assembly), along with an optimised f/1.5, 25 mm (21.7° HFOV x 17.5° VFOV) or 50 mm (11° HFOV x 8.8° VFOV) lens enables it to detect and reveal gas plumes. “It’s an xBn, or ‘hot MWIR’ [mid- wavelength infrared] detector, that we’ve used to replace previous systems that use InSb [indium antimonide] detector arrays, which typically have to be cooled to 77 K [-196 C],” explained Jeff Leake. “The xBn runs at about 150 K, which reduces the SWaP requirements of the cooler, allowing us to miniaturise this kind of camera to about a quarter of the weight of similar types of systems.” That enables the 5 in-long camera core, with lens, to weigh only 1.24 lb. That is important for use on UAVs where every unit of weight translates into flight time. “Thus the detector, filter and lens have all been optimised for detection and imaging of about 22 hydrocarbon gases,” Leake said. “The combination of these elements means the sensitivity or noise-equivalent temperature difference has improved by a factor of two over previous systems, enabling an operator to detect smaller leaks at further distances depending on the environmental conditions.” Other features include a digital zoom of up to 8x, automatic gain and level control, manual adjustment of gain and level, invert/ revert polarity, and local area processing with dynamic contrast enhancement. Noise reduction filtering, and foreground and background boost adjustment, are also available. Interfaces include digital camera link, RS-422 serial, GigE, H.264 and NTSC/ PAL analogue video. Volz Servos has added a position sensor to its DA-26 and DA-30 OPV servos’ clutches. “This means that whenever the clutch is re-engaging, the position controller of the servo will immediately know where the servo arm is located, and can drive it to the desired position,” said Mark Juhrig. AUVSI Xponential 2018 | Show report Unmanned Systems Technology | June/July 2018 The ScanEagle3 is Insitu’s first UAV to be designed for commercial use Sierra Olympic’s optical gas imaging camera core Volz has updated its DA-26 servo to include a position sensor