104 Once again, the DroneX trade show and conference made its way to the halls of London’s ExCeL in September 2024. There, many companies positioned across uncrewed aircraft manufacturing, operation and components took their places at their stands to show the fruits of their latest research and product development. Among the new solutions on display were eye-catching innovations in aircraft engineering, autonomy systems, material production, sensors, data processing, and much more. Representatives of companies walked the aisles to discuss recent and upcoming product announcements with vital partners and prospective customers. Limosaero is a UAV developer and manufacturer whose eponymous flagship product is a fully electric, fixed-wing aircraft sporting solar wings. It has been designed for low altitude, long endurance (LALE) applications, including remote sensing and atmospheric monitoring at minimised operating costs. “Broadly, those remote-sensing applications are environmental monitoring and air-quality monitoring, including tracking of CO2 and methane fluxes, with longer-than-average flights and larger datasets per flight, enabled by its solar-electric powertrain,” said Hilary Costello of Limosaero. “Our technical background originated in the high-altitude, solar aircraft space, meaning UAVs designed for 20 km operating altitudes. Since then, however, we’ve become more interested in making something more robust and adaptable for lower altitudes, wide payload remits [and] daytime flights, with the ultimate goal being something capable of multi-day flight endurance.” The Limosaero solar UAV has a payload capacity of 5 kg, and a typical flight endurance of between five and 12 hours, with its airframe featuring a 5.5 m wingspan. Jetoptera attended the expo to showcase a demonstrator for its J-500 UAV, developed in recent years with a prospective end-user in Dubai and anticipated for deployment next year. “The maximum take-off weight of the aircraft is 500 lb, so about 226 kg, and we’re also announcing here at the show that our turbine engine, developed specifically for this system, has passed its critical design review,” said Dr Andrei T. Evulet at Jetoptera. “Our FPS [Fluidic Propulsive System] propulsion technology has evolved a lot since we last spoke with you seven years ago. Today, it uses a turboshaft, driving an axial, two-stage turbocompressor, with highly optimised aero features and pressure ratio. The system is 90% manufactured via additive manufacturing and principally designed to burn jet fuel or sustainable aviation fuel, but we can switch to diesel if needed.” The J-500 uses two 250 lbf (1000 N) FPS thrusters at the rear of its fuselage and smaller size, 75 lbf class (335 N) Many companies showed off their innovations and services this year at ExCeL, as Rory Jackson reports Deck the halls December/January 2025 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Among the UAV firms showcasing at DroneX was Limosaero, whose solar UAV has a 5.5 m wingspan, a 5 kg payload capacity and a typical flight endurance of five to 12 hours
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