102 The biggest show in the world for autonomous systems, AUVSI Xponential, landed at San Diego, California in April, gathering hundreds of companies from around the world to showcase their newest uncrewed system and componentry offerings for land, air and sea. The following is the second half of our report, covering the vast commercial tech news coming out of this industry defining show, to complete our account of what technologies are setting the stage for the uncrewed systems of tomorrow. Tekever unveiled its ARX UAS, which is being developed to function as a carrier-aircraft for future swarming drone operations, with commercial availability expected in 2025. “Swarming is something we do every day, with multiple units of our UAVs cooperating to execute missions,” said Ricardo Mendes of Tekever. “We will have AR5s connected with AR3s, with distributed mission execution. For instance, the AR5 UAS is SATCOMcapable, and AR3s aren’t currently, so we will often have missions where AR5s act as network nodes for AR3s.” However, projecting the reach of one’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), including beyond radio range and into congested environments, requires larger UAVs for longer endurance and the capacity to carry SATCOM terminals and equipment for GNSS-denied localisation or other, smaller UAVs. The ARX is intended as that larger, more capable platform. It integrates roughly the same autonomy stack as the AR3, but with a 600 kg MTOW instead of the AR5’s 180 kg MTOW. Through that greater carrying capacity for fuel and payloads, ARX can fly hundreds of kilometres farther than the Rory Jackson checks out the latest and the greatest in uncrewed system technology Pure excellence August/September 2024 | Uncrewed Systems Technology The Xponential 2024 event in San Diego brought hundreds of new uncrewed vehicles and subsystems onto the world stage (Image courtesy of AUVSI)
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2Mzk4