80 Insight | UAVs Around its blended-wing main body, where the fixed-angle rotors mount, the FIXAR 025 features a triangular aerofoil, the corners of which serve as landing struts. This achieves the more pragmatic, functional and efficient frame that Fainveits wanted, with just over a year of CFD and CAD modelling to optimise it. “That triangular wing actually enables the UAV to glide, so long as the CoG is placed correctly, as we’ve found in flight experiments,” he adds. “Following aerodynamic and structural validations of the wing shape, we then had to figure out where to put avionics, batteries and payloads. “That motivated us to design the blended-wing body in the centre of the triangle – which created an internal volume space for those enclosures to go, without disturbing the aerodynamic profile of the triangle wing – and add some extra wings in the left and right to compensate for the less aerodynamic central body.” Through this design, every part of the 025 UAV generates lift. The 25 kg UAV will carry a payload of up to 10 kg, with gimbals installable in the nose, and Lidars and downward-pointing mapping (or oblique) cameras in the centre of the fuselage. From the batteries, FIXAR expects up to 3.5 hours of flight endurance, 300 km of flight distance and cruising speeds of 85 kph between charges. “We’ve completed scale-model flight tests of the 025, and estimate 20-22% energy efficiency improvement over the 007 UAV. Making the 1 m-wingspan scale prototype was key to affirming that the triangular wing could be manufactured conventionally, from composites off of an aluminium mould,” Fainveits adds. In June, the company went on to successfully display its full-scale, 3 m-wingspan prototype of the 025 UAV at Eurosatory 2024 in Paris, and it began its first flight tests in Montenegro. Earth observation Not many are aware that New Zealand is among the five most prolific countries on Earth when it comes to routine rocket launches (the others being China, Russia, the US and India). Much of that success comes from the activities of Rocket Lab, whose space-launch activities from its private orbital launch range in Mahia, New Zealand, have motivated great interest from New Zealanders in other critical future applications towards which its fast-growing aerospace resources could be leveraged. Among the main interested parties is Mark Rocket, CEO of Kea Aerospace, formerly the seed investor and co-director of Rocket Lab. Rocket partnered its now-CTO Philipp Sueltrop to develop the latter’s idea for a New Zealand-based, high-altitude pseudosatellite (HAPS) aircraft, which could perform stratosphere-based services such as Earth observation, high-resolution aerial imaging, telecommunications, synthetic aperture radar surveys and upper atmospheric research testing. “As we looked at the commercial opportunities of HAPS, and engineering and test-flying infrastructure we have here in New Zealand, we became convinced it was an ideal opportunity to develop a lightweight, composite-material, solar-powered aircraft,” Rocket recounts. “So, three years ago, we gained the funding to found Kea Aerospace’s Kea Atmos Mk1 project, which is designed as a single-day, solar-powered stratospheric system, and next year we will start the design of the Kea Atmos Mk2, which will be a multi-month endurance platform.” The Kea Atmos Mk1 is a 12.5 m- wingspan UAV with a single boom and tail, which takes small, 2-3 kg payloads into the stratosphere. Two are built as of writing, and in flight tests the stratosphere itself is targeted to be reached at the end of this year, when summer conditions in the southern hemisphere allow. By contrast, the Kea Atmos Mk2’s wingspan is expected to be about 30 m long, with a 5-6 kg payload capacity (on top of its far greater flight endurance). Its engineering will be heavily informed by test data and lessons learned from the Kea Atmos Mk1 on how to optimise aerodynamic and structural performance in stratospheric environments. “There’s a raft of different systems we’re looking to characterise and optimise via the Kea Atmos Mk1 test flights – communications, autopilot, composites – so it is prudent to split our development into two steps, where the Mk1 flies specific, small payloads while being a test platform for a lot of our proprietary technologies, and the Mk2 design builds on the Mk1’s data and successes,” Rocket says. “We are taking an iterative approach that enables us to move quickly, August/September 2024 | Uncrewed Systems Technology New Zealand-based Kea Aerospace’s Atmos Mk1 is a 12.5 m-wingspan stratospheric solar UAV; design of the 30 m-wingspan Atmos Mk2 will be completed in 2025 (Image courtesy of Kea Aerospace)
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