57 deployment in Switzerland anticipated in the near future) for public safety use cases. “The other benefit of 4G/LTE and 5G is that this connectivity enables flying beyond visual line of sight [BVLOS] as long as the drone stays within the range of the network. Additionally, what’s worth mentioning is that the system enables one pilot to control a fleet of drones from one remote operations centre,” Legrand added. VITEC has launched an update for its embedded video-encoding platform, which adds an overlay feature that end-users can configure and limit as needed in their streamed data. “As an embedded platform, we don’t use a huge CPU, as in a desktop computer, but the objective of this update was for end-users to be able to tag their video streams, so that if uncrewed vehicle operators have multiple streams coming in from assets on sea, in the air and underwater, all coming to the ground at once, then you can see at a glance which is which,” said Bruno Teissier. “Engineers looking to qualify a new aircraft or sensor need to know which stream is coming from the new asset, perhaps to judge against an older or control stream for the test case. Also, some uncrewed vehicles in resident inspection applications will work simultaneously, so inspection personnel need to see at a glance which vehicle is streaming to which monitor in front of them, rather than go through complex settings to see that.” The absence of a CPU puts significant constraints on how VITEC could develop the update; the exact details remain proprietary. However, the company said that with the latest version of its video-encoding solutions, the streaming bit rate can be changed seamlessly, autonomously and on the fly. This means that when an end-user’s vehicle moves from a close distance relative to the GCS to a long distance, the bit rate can be automatically adjusted to suit the bandwidth to improve the overall quality of the video stream, preventing the need to stop and restart the stream with new parameters. Teledyne FLIR Defense unveiled its Black Recon VRS (Vehicle Reconnaissance System) UAS, a combined solution of small-sized helicopter UAVs and a containerised Launch and Recovery box. It has been designed for mounting on armoured personnel carriers or battle tanks, and functioning as a larger complement to the company’s Black Hornet 4 micro-UAS. The box contains three UAVs, each battery-powered and capable of over 45 minutes of flight endurance, with 5-6 km of data-link range. As Teledyne FLIR’s Jakob Jakobsen explained: “By mounting the Launch and Recovery box on a military vehicle, the idea is that the UAVs will take turns between charging and flying to Eurosatory | Show report Uncrewed Systems Technology | October/November 2024 The Nokia Drone Networks drone-docking station VITEC’s new overlay feature, as visible text in a video still
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