82 test systems very swiftly, evaluate data concisely and keep moving. We learned at Rocket Lab how to prototype and optimise various safety-rated aerospace technologies rapidly, how to work well with solar and composite materials, and other important approaches to innovation that now serve Kea Aerospace well. “And, working in New Zealand, which has all the infrastructure we need, but typically doesn’t have deep pockets for technology development, it really teaches you how to innovate on a budget.” The Kea Atmos Mk2 design phase will be completed in 2025. Simultaneously, Kea will work on the Mk1’s ongoing flight tests and commercial projects for early adopters. An increasing majority of Kea Aerospace’s testing and development takes place at Tāwhaki National Aerospace Centre, a one-hour drive from the company’s facility in Christchurch. Tāwhaki’s facilities include a 1 km sealed runway, a large test corridor that extends out 100 km over the ocean and to 60,000 ft, and hangar facilities targeted to be completed in the next few months. “That extensive airspace enables us to do a lot of flight testing, and being at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean just generally means we get really low air traffic, which, along with the coastal terrain and low population density, means we can carry out near-constant, exhaustive and lengthy flight tests of new technologies without incurring anything close to the risks or clearance paperwork needed in most other places around the world,” Rocket notes. Maritime survey While solar cells are critical for high-altitude UAV operations, they are also a useful addition for UAVs in lower-altitude, longendurance applications as an alternative to batteries in maximising range. The M5D Airfox UAV from Spanish manufacturer Marine Instruments serves as a key example of such engineering. This 4 kg, blended wing body electric aircraft achieves a 10-hour flight endurance through its combination of photovoltaics, battery energy and aerodynamics. As Javier Gravalos Belloc, business development manager public sector, tells us: “We first started developing this aircraft for the tuna fishery industry, because our core business lay in tuna fishing satellite buoys, and a UAV could provide coverage where the buoy could not. After COVID-19 made it difficult to interact with the fisheries, we moved over to the maritime defence market.” Having transitioned from fishing industries to naval users, much like the Insitu ScanEagle (Issue 56), the end goal of the M5D’s engineering has remained the creation of something easy to operate, such that neither fisheries nor navy surveyors would need to become UAV engineers to use it. Hence, Marine Instruments has developed and manufactured its autopilot, avionics, communications systems, payloads and software in-house. “The Spanish Navy has three OPVs [offshore patrol vessels], one of which is fighting piracy off the Gulf of Guinea, and there the Airfox’s 10-hour maximum endurance – 1.5 hour minimum – and its 18 nautical mile range are critical assets,” Gravalos Belloc adds. “The airframe is built from a carbonKevlar airframe, which keeps it lightweight and easy to handle; that means it can be launched either by catapult or by hand. The M5D-Airfox also oversees fisheries monitoring along more than 7,000 km of the Spanish coast under a contract with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, and has successfully completed various naval exercises with the Spanish Navy, NATO and the US Navy.” Public safety For UAVs to excel in public safety applications, and other use-cases centred around stable surveying over potentially populated areas, they must be heavily optimised to hover in a safe, stable and energy-efficient manner, with conventional multi-rotors sometimes struggling to manage all three of these (not least the energy-efficiency part). To hit all three targets, Angel Aerial Systems has engineered its flagship Trio UAV with three wings attached to a central fuselage (hub). Each wing has a rotor at the end and can be independently modulated to allow the August/September 2024 | Uncrewed Systems Technology The M5D Airfox UAV from Marine Instruments serves in monitoring fisheries and a variety of navy missions (Image courtesy of Marine Instruments)
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