106 Domo Tactical Communications (DTC) has developed an RF ranging capability, leveraging its existing BluSDR IP Mesh radio technology and MeshUltra waveforms. “While DTC BluSDR radios are typically used for C2 or ISR downlink comms, they can now also measure the time taken for a signal to get from one radio to another and then back to the first radio again,” said Rob Garth at DTC. “This round-trip Time of Flight allows us to understand how long the signal took to travel through the ether, and as we know the speed of light we can then calculate the distance between the two radios. Add further nodes with known positions into the system and we can start to triangulate an absolute position for a UxV in a GNSS-denied environment.” DTC is also working with its partner, Inertial Labs (INL), which is integrating its IMU and GNSS data with DTC’s RF ranging data to deliver a single, ‘fused’ best estimate for position with a single NMEA output, which removes the need to add additional software to an existing flight controller. “The partnership with Inertial Labs enables us to combine DTC’s many years’ expertise in delivering robust, long-range, wideband, wireless communication links with INL’s innovative Alt Nav technologies to deliver a really exciting, multi-source, fused-positioning capability, which can enable effective drone operation in GNSSdenied environments,” Garth added. “We’ve done a lot of trials in different ground and air environments to gather data for optimising the system, and we are pleased to see RF ranging accuracies as good as 20-30 m, irrespective of operating range.” Sierra-Olympia Technologies exhibited a range of new capabilities for its Ventus HD6 series of cooled MWIR cameras, including different lenses. “One is an 18-180 mm folded zoom lens; that folded aspect making it ideal for use in airborne applications like 8 in gimbals. When that’s integrated, we call it the Ventus HD2.4, for its 2.4° horizontal FoV at full zoom, going up to 25° at wide angle,” said Jacob Begis at Sierra-Olympia. “The other lens is a 50-720 mm zoom lens. “Both lenses are f/2.6, so they collect a lot of light compared to the other big-zoom lenses used in the mid-wave market. A lot of them are f/4 or f/5.5, so we collect about two to four times as much light, which improves sensitivity.” The HD6’s core includes a focal plane array with a 6-micron pixel pitch on a HD (1280 x 960) format detector. The larger format, paired with the small pixels, results in excellent spatial resolution while maintaining its FoV. Conventional, mid-wave cameras are VGA resolution (640 x 480) and typically have 10-15 micron pixel pitch. “The HexaBlu sensor, made by Leonardo DRS, has a demonstrated 27,000 hour-plus Dewar lifespan, keeping it working in the field for longer,” Begis added. “We also sell the Ventus HD6 with our image processor from Sightline Applications, which performs video encoding, allows non-uniformity corrections over zoom, and provides software features such as focus metric and KLV metadata injection.” Power4Flight unveiled its IntelliGen, which has been developed over the past several years as an intelligent controller (or PMU) for starter-generators in today’s high-end UAV powertrains. It has been programmed and matured as a solution for efficient charging of eVTOL battery packs, thrust augmentation, adaptive load sharing and management, and, of course, electronic starting. “The electronics used to start and drive today’s engines are often massive, because starting an electric motor with full torque at 0 rpm is hard, especially in a sensorless motor, but IntelliGen is designed with Hall sensor inputs, which allows it to pull correctly commutated currents for quickly cranking an engine to 1000 rpm from zero, while using significantly less power and space than conventional starter-controllers,” said Bill Vaglienti at Power4Flight. As the system runs, it uses synchronous rectification to turn a August/September 2024 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Sierra-Olympia Technologies’ HD6-2.4
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