Issue 45 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Aug/Sept 2022 Tidewie USV Tupan | Performance monitoring | Bayonet 350 | UAVs insight | Xponential 2022 | ULPower UL350i and UL350iHPS | Elroy Air Chaparral | Gimbals | Clogworks Dark Matter

96 And when the Chaparral is taxiing to a cargo pod to pick it up, and afterwards taxiing to a take-off area, two automotive- grade Lidars mounted at the front and rear are used for perception of ground objects to autonomously prevent collisions. The company has also developed specialised robotic systems that work together to ensure that the physical act of cargo loading and unloading can be performed autonomously. First, on the underside of the Chaparral is a ‘grasper’ mechanism hung from straps that winch it up and down. It’s a telescopic metal bar with linear actuators inside and open-receptacle ends, and can of course extend outwards and back. The cargo container meanwhile has two V-shaped tracks, one at each end of its top side. Once the Chaparral has taxied over the container, the grasper is lowered from the undercarriage down to the height of the tracks, contracted at this point in order to fit easily between the connectors. When it’s low enough, the actuators telescope the grasper outwards to seek the end of the tracks and keep a rigid hold on them while the grasper and pod are winched up snug to the undercarriage. Hasps at the corners of the pod are latched by mechanisms inside the fuselage, connecting the pod to the Chaparral’s hard points for the duration of the flight. “At each end of the grasper is an open ‘fish mouth’ shape that is metal like the V-tracks and shaped to engage with, then slide along them easily,” Merrill says. “The funnel-like shape of the V-tracks makes them tolerant of up to 15 cm position divergence, which is much wider than the beacons’ actual margin of error. “Once the grasper winches the pod up to the UAV, a rubber gasket running along the upper edge of the pod helps to press and seal the container against the undercarriage. “As this system was developed specifically for the Chaparral to automate its cargo handling, we have a unique test bench for constantly testing the mechanism under different conditions.” Scheduled flights Elroy Air anticipates that most of the Chaparral’s flights will be scheduled, regular deliveries, rather than ad hoc last-mile routes. For instance, earlier this year the company announced a partnership with US-based Mesa Airlines, which indicated its intention to order 150 Chaparral systems for its services in express parcel and healthcare logistics. “We’ll be serving middle-mile B2B journeys such as airport-to-warehouse, warehouse-to-warehouse or warehouse- to-retailer routes, which are mostly serviced at the moment using a combination of trucks and light aircraft,” Merrill says. “Each Chaparral will run multiple missions per day, which is quite a bit different from how today’s feeder or regional air cargo are used. They often run just one flight out in the morning and then a return flight in the afternoon, with the asset sitting around the rest of the time.” As an uncrewed system with lower operating costs and VTOL capability, the Chaparral will operate for long hours, flying multiple deliveries per day. Sometimes that will be in a hub-and- spoke model, where a user has a central distribution centre with goods that go out to multiple places; at other times it will operate a milk run, where a single UAV makes multiple deliveries in a multi-leg circle on its way back to its origin. “Broadly, we’ll be serving the need for express logistics that is stemming partially from a demand for shippers to meet the global growth in e-commerce, and also to differentiate themselves by offering faster and more flexible deliveries in more places,” Merrill says. August/September 2022 | Uncrewed Systems Technology A Lidar under the nose and another at the rear provide perception during ground navigation for safe autonomous taxiing The Chaparral’s robotic cargo pod grasping and winching system uses two linear actuators extending from the UAV to grip the payload’s top bracket