USE Network launch I UAV Works VALAQ l Cable harnesses l USVs insight l Xponential 2020 update l MARIN AUV l Suter Industries TOA 288 l Vitirover l AI systems l Vtrus ABI

54 A lthough AUVSI Xponential 2020 has been postponed until later this year owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, technology developers are still unveiling new projects and innovations that stand to bring major advances to the unmanned world. To learn about the newest in autonomous vehicles, engines, sensors, mechanics, electronics and mechatronics, we interviewed a range of companies about their new releases. Here are their latest updates. Emmanuel Previnaire of Flying-Cam discussed the recent integration of the MX-8 payload, a 6.8 kg multi-sensor turret from L3Harris Wescam, into his company’s Discovery helicopter UAV. His team was supported in this endeavour by L3Harris Wescam engineers, which supplied blueprints for creating the soft mount for the payload. “In terms of power supply, we have close to 1 kW of electric power on board the Discovery,” he said. “That is more than enough to power the average 65 W of the MX-8, and leaves plenty left over for additional payloads. “We decided to create our own wiring to save space and weight, since the payload’s original wiring was more for a full-size helicopter. Connectors were standard Mil- Specs and easy enough to obtain. “On the video data transmission side, we are used to broadcasting sports events for the TV industry with very low latency, but we reduced it further using a specific video encoder. We got it down to 60 ms latency, which went up to a maximum of 160 ms when including the MX-8’s internal processing, making it easier to lock on targets.” The Discovery is a heavy-fuel turbine- powered single-rotor helicopter that can carry up to 30 kg of payload and offers a standard operating endurance of two- and-a-half hours when carrying 15 kg of payload. A Discovery XR (Xtended Range) is also available as an option: that has a heavy-fuel combustion engine and 5 hours of flight time. Unmanned system developers are not letting the pandemic-created delay in holding this show stop them from unveiling new products, as Rory Jackson reports Looking beyond lockdown June/July 2020 | Unmanned Systems Technology Flying-Cam’s Discovery UAV has integrated L3Harris Wescam’s MX-8 payload gimbal, with the former’s engineers selecting a new encoder to minimise latency