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33 Another partner, Accenture, brings substantial experience in connectivity and safety to the team, Koperberg notes. “That is a programme we will launch next year to invest in sense & avoid, connectivity between drones and reducing operator workload by delegating more decisions to the aircraft.” Next steps At the moment, the aircraft is remotely piloted, because development of the flight control algorithms has to wait until the team has some real flight data to work with that can be used to calibrate the algorithms that will allow the aircraft to follow pre-programmed flight plans and to take off and land automatically. Flight testing will also confirm the aircraft’s take-off performance in terms of how much runway it will need to get airborne. The current estimate is 300 m to get off the ground and 500 m to clear a 50 ft obstacle. The immediate next step is to test the complete system in the air. “All the ground testing is complete, but it had to have its maiden flight before Christmas 2020,” Koperberg says. “We had planned to do this last summer but we’ve had about six months’ delay – the factory was closed for a couple of months and we had some supply issues – because of Covid.” Once Wings For Aid has some flight test hours logged, it plans to explore the intended applications with the UN and the Red Cross under real conditions. “We have done our ‘desk’ research and so have they, but it is important to see it fly, to see the boxes drop and to do that in the field,” Koperberg says. “We now need to move into countries and work with humanitarian organisations.” Beyond that, there is a list of detail improvements to be incorporated, many of them in the UAV’s ergonomics, that will go into what he calls the Mk 2 aircraft, which should be ready next year. These include replacing the four cables that the loader has to pull to open the payload access doors in the side of the cargo pod – an expedient temporary solution used during development – with a single handle. “We hope we can have a small number of these Mk 2 aircraft to test for a year or two, after which we will know that this is the right aircraft to proceed with. Then we can really scale up,” Koperberg says. He estimates that the market for such ‘last-mile’ logistics in the humanitarian sphere is worth about $1 billion annually, with an estimated growth rate of 3-5% based on UN data. “As our system is a new element in the logistical mix, we have to find out over the coming years how big the niche for this service is,” Koperberg says. Unmanned Systems Technology | December/January 2021 Wingspan: 9.5 m Wing area: 12.6 m 2 Length: 6.5 m Height: 2.9 m Wing and tail structure: CFRP composite Tail boom structure: aluminium alloy tube Cargo pod structure: tubular steel spaceframe, carbon fibre-reinforced epoxy sandwich skins with honeycomb core Maximum take-off weight: 641 kg Payload: 160 kg (8 x 20 kg boxes) Mission radius: 250 km Speed: 125 kph typical cruise Drop height: about 300 ft (91 m) typical, 164 ft (50 m) minimum Drop speed: 75-90 kph Powerplant: 48 kW Rotax 582 UL two-cylinder liquid-cooled two-stroke engine Propeller: four-blade fixed pitch Some key suppliers Flight control system: Amazilia Aerospace Ground control: Amazilia Aerospace Air vehicle design and manufacturing: Pipistrel Powerplant: Rotax Cargo box design and materials: Smurfit Kappa Cargo box insulation: Trip & Co Project partners Operating concept development, flight test support: German Aerospace Centre Expertise with materials, certification, standards and UAV pilot training: Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre Logistics: Rhenus Logistics Expertise in aircraft, certification and operating concepts, provision of bases for testing: Royal Netherlands Air Force Provision of testing facilities and vehicles, logistics expertise: Royal Netherlands Army Design and operations advice, advanced aircraft concepts: Technical University of Delft Operational shelter design, contributions to aid box refinement and testing: Technical University of Eindhoven Modelling, optimisation and analysis of logistics processes and UAV operations: University of Twente Support of design and development of the UAV system, cargo box, cargo bays and fuselage: VanBerlo/Accenture Specifications