Uncrewed Systems Technology 049 - April/May 2023

59 ( UST 1, November 2014 and UST 33, August/September 2020). “Soon after becoming a UAV reseller, we started some work of our own in robotics, developing UGVs for counter-IED work by the Italian army in Afghanistan,” says Pietro Lapiana, president of Eurolink Systems. “The idea to create our own UAVs came 3 years ago, when we observed in the market that although there were thousands of drones being used around the world, most of themwere essentially just bricks with arms. Add to that all their surrounding electronics, antennas and so on, and you find that many drones are rather inefficient aerodynamically.” As luckwould have it, about a year ago a northern Europeanmilitary customer approached Eurolinkwith a request for a UAV capable of airspeeds ofmore than 100 kph and autonomous take-offand landing, for delivering blood for operating theatres potentially only 2-3 kmfromthe front line. Another request was a flight endurance of an hour while carrying 1.5 kg of blood. These provided Eurolink with a number of key specs that it needed to take from the concept stage through to prototyping. “As far as physical design points went, our first decision was not to use any Chinese or hobbyist components,” Lapiana says. “If the customer came specifically to us for an OEMUAV, it meant they were after high-end, mission-critical components, not anything cheap or that they could find elsewhere. “Also, if the customer wanted high speeds, the UAV had to be aerodynamic, so since we were starting from a blank sheet, we didn’t want to spend ages on a ground-up education in fluid dynamics. We therefore decided to go straight to studying Mother Nature, who has had millions of years to optimise and streamline animal shapes.” At around this time, Lapiana and his team observed that Airbus was working on its A330-743L BelugaXL aircraft, a Beluga whale-shaped fixed-wing transport aircraft developed to replace the similarly biomimetic A300-600ST Super Transporter, and took inspiration from the concept. In Eurolink’s eyes, the Beluga whale shape had the advantages of a big frontal head for easy storage of avionics, batteries and other parts, as well as a highly fluid dynamic nature by virtue of evolving to swimadeptly in water at different speeds. Species of Beluga The Beluga UAVs can be divided into two broad groups depending on the general application they are designed for: logistics or ISR. For the former, a 2.5 litre cargo bay is attached to the bottom of the body, or an optional, larger undercarriage systemwith 14 litres can be installed instead. In the latter, a custom-engineered gimbal is installed with a suite of sensors matching the customer’s mission needs. Some commonalities exist between the UAV’s variants. Each is an all- Eurolink Systems Beluga | Digest Uncrewed Systems Technology | April/May 2023 The Beluga has been designed with a biomimetic hull shape and exploits the company’s extensive experience in electronics (Images courtesy of Eurolink Systems) The Beluga can be supplied as a logistics UAV with 2.5 litres of cargo space, or an ISR version with a customised gimbal