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48 The 130T will be about 145 ft in length and have a 270 ft in wingspan, with a MTOW of 433,180 kg and a maximum empty weight of 190,509 kg (without fuel or cargo). The aircraft is projected to carry 129,727 kg of freight for 9260 km over 10 hours non-stop, or 113,398 kg over 12,964 km for 14.5 hours. Although the development of such large, heavy UAVs is unconventional, much of Natilus’ approach revolves around tried-and-tested methods. “Every Natilus vehicle is designed and built using standard aircraft methods – similar to what you might see at Boeing and Airbus,” says Matyushev. “The carbon fibre airframe will be designed and certified to FAA regulations, which also means the empty- to-max gross structural ratios are in line with other industry competitors.” The sensor suite for each aircraft will match those of large-scale commercial cargo planes: radar, altimeter (for automatic landing), differential GPS, ADS-B, and airspeed and heading sensors, among others. Most of them will be mounted on the belly or roof of each UAV, positioned far enough apart so as to not interfere with one another. Each freighter’s mission will begin and end at a runway, with the aforementioned altimeter, radar and ADS-B being key to automatic take-off and landing. The 3.4T is designed for feeder cargo operations, using smaller regional airports to ferry shipments to larger hubs. The 60T meanwhile is intended for domestic and transatlantic cargo operations, while the 100T could be used on long-haul journeys such as routes across the Pacific. The flights will be fully autonomous from start to finish. The remote pilot will not use a joystick at the GCS, as the latency over a satellite link would be too great to allow for safe remote control, Matyushev says. “Natilus therefore uses fully custom, proprietary control hardware and software,” he says. “It is one of the only autopilots around that is set up to be certified by the FAA.” UAV couriers Although retail giants such as Amazon and Alibaba are known for developing and trialling delivery UAVs, major aerospace companies are also using their knowledge to develop autonomous solutions for package delivery services that can operate independently of roads and human input. Airbus’ Skyways UAV, for example, has taken a few cues in power and design from the group’s past endeavours in urban air mobility and electric VTOL aircraft, such as the Vahana and CityAirbus air taxi projects. “Flying in an urban environment carries far higher safety expectations than for UAVs designed for rural areas,” says Leo Jeoh, Airbus’ deputy vice-president of support engineering, and the Skyways project leader. “The project began in 2016, in collaboration with the civil aviation authority of Singapore. They helped us identify what was ‘safe enough’ for an urban environment.” To avoid potential harm to civilians resulting from a systems failure aboard urban delivery UAVs, the Skyways team has worked on the concept of ‘aero- corridors’. This involves designating pathways in the air that Skyways UAVs could follow, and which have been designed to avoid crowded areas such as town or city squares, operating instead over covered walkways and other areas. Also, an eight-motor multi-copter type airframe (rather than a helicopter type) has been selected to enable redundancy of the power and lift system. If a propeller December/January 2019 | Unmanned Systems Technology Natilus’ UAVs are being developed to carry out global air freight deliveries at half the cost of manned carriers (Courtesy of Natilus) The Airbus Skyways UAV is being trialled in ship-to- shore package deliveries, carrying items such as spare parts and additively printed goods (Courtesy of Airbus)