102 The company’s proprietary Avidrone G4 autopilot has similarly been produced from a blank sheet, owing to the rarity with which flight software and controllers suited to the particular control regimes and dynamics of tandem rotor helicopters are supplied. These circumstances also apply to GCSs; as such, no third-party software or hardware products are installed in the 210TL. “Having a closed system like this is useful for defence users to ensure security, and on top of that all the UAV’s protocols are encrypted,” Gray said. The 210TL has a MTOW of 38 kg, with around 16 kg of payload capacity that can be configured with various battery sets. In this typical weight allocation, and assuming a cruising airspeed of 80 kph, the aircraft has an endurance of slightly longer than 30 minutes. Its top speed is 100 kph, and its maximum range if the battery weight is maximised is 100 km. The company is also working on a much larger version of the 210TL, to be named the 740T, which will weigh 600 kg and have a 225 kg cargo payload capacity. It will be powered by a gas turbine engine, and its official unveiling is set for 2025. Innalabs attended the exhibition to show and discuss its inertial sensing devices, which have been used in various space and defence vehicles. “Our Arietis is a radiation-hardened gyroscope that was developed under an ESA-funded programme, but we’ve matured it further for the new space market, including creating a radiationtolerant version that costs much less,” said Ian Robinson. “Our gyros are currently installed in at least 40 satellites, including one from the European Space Agency, and they have racked up over 3 million flight hours.” The gyroscopes are based on coriolis vibratory elements, cylindrical metal resonator devices that piezoelectrically detect vibrations derived from angular motion. They can also detect True North, owing to their low drift (in degrees per hour) over their lifetimes. “We can supply individual gyros or integrate them as triple-axis solutions with an FPGA to process the raw data into actionable inertial measurements,” Robinson said. The company also produces quartz-based accelerometers with measurement ranges of 60 g and one-year repeatability within 600 ppm for UAVs, as well as land and marine navigation and optical systems. Fizoptika Malta showcased its new VG220 series of fibre optic gyroscopes (FOGs), which come in two versions – the VG221, offered as a lower-power device; and a lower-noise version, the VG221LN. The VG221 consumes 0.3 W in typical operations and has 0.05o/√hour of angular random walk as well as an MTBF of 150,000 hours. The VG221LN requires 0.5 W to operate, although its angular random walk is lower, at 0.025o/√hour, albeit with a lower MTBF. “Both can come in either aluminium or µ-metal housings, the latter providing lower magnetic sensitivity,” said Arthur Tua. The VG220s weigh 15 g in their aluminium enclosures and 25 g in μ-metal. The latter housing however December/January 2024 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Innalabs’ Arietis gyroscope Fizoptika’s VG221 FOG
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