Unmanned Systems Technology 026 I Tecdron TC800-FF I Propellers I USVs I AUVSI 2019 part 1 I Robby Moto UAVE I Singular Aircraft FlyOx I Teledyne SeaRaptor I Simulation & Testing I Ocean Business 2019 report

14 Platform one June/July 2019 | Unmanned Systems Technology Researchers at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Italy have demonstrated a small hydraulic quadruped ground robot that can pull a 3.3 tonne aircraft (writes Nick Flaherty). The HyQReal is 1.33 m long, 90 cm tall and weighs 130 kg. It is protected by an aluminium roll cage and a skin made of Kevlar, glass fibre and plastic, with custom-made feet made in special rubber for high traction on the ground. A 48 V battery pack powers four electric motors connected to four hydraulic pumps. These use new actuators that were co-developed with Moog and allow the platform to be operated without the need for an umbilical line to provide power or control signals. The robot has two computers on board, one dedicated to vision and the other to control, which are closely coupled to the new Moog hydraulic technology. The IIT adapted its locomotion control framework Elistair in France has launched its fourth generation of tether system to provide power and comms to a UAV (writes Nick Flaherty). The Ligh-T version 4 provides unlimited flight time to 20 of the most popular commercially available UAVs via a 230 m power line to a tether station on the ground. The first version was released back in 2015 and has been used by police forces, private security and at industrial sites for surveillance. The feedback from these deployments fed into the design of v4, with Plug and Fly Air modules that support individual UAVs such as DJI’s M200 V2, M200 V1, the Inspire 1 and 2, and the Yuneec H920. Data transfer is handled through a micro-tether attached to the main power line. The micro-tether weighs 10.5 g/m and uses a newly developed dual-mode tether management system that controls the micro-tether’s tension via a motor while allowing the user to manually wind and unwind it in case there is a power outage. Housed in a rugged case with an open and accessible interface, the system is easily transportable so that it can be deployed quickly at a site such as a stadium. The T-Monitor software application has also been updated to allow full remote monitoring of the tether station’s state during each flight. that it has developed over the past decade. The system has been tested by pulling a 14.4 m Piaggio P180 Avanti passenger aircraft that weighs 3300 kg. The long-term goal of the HyQReal project is to create the hardware, software and algorithms for robust quadruped vehicles for rough terrain that can be tailored to applications such as disaster response, agriculture, decommissioning and inspection. “Pulling a plane allowed us to demonstrate the robot’s strength, power autonomy and the design,” said Claudio Semini, project leader at the IIT’s Dynamic Legged Systems lab. UGV has pulling power Pan-brand tether system Ground vehicles Airborne vehicles A new hydraulic system has allowed the IIT system to pull a 3.3 tonne aircraft Elistair’s system allows quick deployment of a UAV at a site such as a stadium