62 Show report | Eurosatory Meteomatics, a company specialising in high-accuracy weather information and intelligence technologies, has developed the Meteodrone MM-670, a UAV engineered for reliable and efficient capture of meteorology data. “At the moment, meteorology in the middle and lower atmospheric layers consists basically of flying blindly, but more refined data is crucial if you want to improve fog, storm and other types of forecasts,” said Martin Fengler. “With this UAV, our intention is to accumulate better weather data at altitudes of 6 km and below, and feed that into our proprietary, high-resolution weather model to generate more precise forecasts. We are manufacturing them in Switzerland, where we’re headquartered, and we have a BVLOS certification application to operate them in any European country.” By default, the UAV integrates sensors for temperature, moisture and pressure, with wind speeds and directions computed using wind-induced changes in the aircraft’s attitude, as sensed by the onboard IMU. Additionally, as well as the moisture sensor giving relative humidity data, that sensor combined with the pressure sensor can give dew-point calculations (this being the temperature to which a given body of air must cool to saturate with water vapour). End-users can, however, install their own meteorology instruments, if desired. The Meteodrone MM-670 is a hexacopter, measuring 70 cm in diameter and weighing 5 kg. Battery powered with six brushless, DC electric motor-propeller drives, the craft’s typical flight endurance is 22 minutes, and it can operate in wind speeds of up to 90 kph. A safety parachute is installed and it is possible to include a propeller heating system. The company is also developing a next-generation version of the Meteodrone, which will be able to fly at altitudes up to 10 km, with future versions able to go higher still. Such iterations will need to operate safely within civil air traffic, so transponder and potentially future detect-and-avoid technologies may be integrated (along with other key electronics for compliance with air-traffic regulations), as well as more powerful propulsion systems and possibly new means of de-icing or preventing icing. We also spoke with Total EMC Products, a UK-headquartered company specialising in the design, manufacture, modification and re-engineering of electrical or electronic systems to make them compliant with industry standards on EMC, such as DEF STAN 59-411 in the UK, MIL-Std 461 in the US, and DO-160. “That includes integration of shielding, filtering or other components to enable EMC-compliance of subsystems going into uncrewed vehicles,” said Neil Harris of Total EMC Products. “If a manufacturer needs to go further than that – for instance, hardening their UAV or UGV against anti-drone jamming, spoofing, high-altitude electromagnetic pulses or other sources of external EM waves – we can also do that to reduce their susceptibility to such interference.” Systems that the company can assist with include embedded computers (both modification of new equipment and original equipment design consultation), servo actuators and alternators. “EMC is a specialist area of engineering, with very few people able to help in the field, because so much of it comes from experience. There’s mathematics behind it, certainly, but they often miss out critical mechanical, packaging or cost effects stemming from what the numbers suggest you do for EM-compliance,” Harris said. “What we do accounts not only for EMC, but also the holistic package around it, so that commercial and even defence users can end up with something both EMC-, SWaP- and vibration-optimised, as needs be.” October/November 2024 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Meteomatics’ Meteodrone UAV A component EMC-ruggedised by Total EMC Products
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2Mzk4