64 Show report | Intergeo “Units of the LR1 are already integrated by and in use with Quantum’s Trinity UAV, which is a fixed-wing system used in inspection, security monitoring and similar missions. It is a very lightweight camera, so it’s suited to the Trinity as a lightweight, VTOL-transitioning and easy-to-use sort of aircraft.” The LR1 weighs 243 g, integrates over a 10-18 V DC connection and consumes 3.8 W when streaming still imagery, or up to 6.5 W if used for streaming movies. Images can be output in raw, JPEG or HEIF formats, and videos can be compressed to H.264 or H.265 standards for streaming. “Another customer, HHL, based in Hamburg, uses our a7R-IV camera to monitor and inspect transportation systems for the government, as well as inspecting piles of shipping containers with UAVs as a safer alternative to human inspectors climbing and inspecting them personally,” Patel continued. “That camera is particularly highresolution; hence why that customer uses it specifically to look for minute signs of damage in transport, and shipping infrastructure and equipment. The a7R-IV weighs 665 g when equipped with a battery and a memory card, and consumes up to 6.2 W of power. It comes with an electronically controlled shutter for taking still images at speeds of 1/8000 s to 30 s (the LR1, meanwhile, can be supplied with either electronic shutter or mechanical shutter). Calian GNSS recently unveiled the VCS6000XF, a new smart antenna aimed at high-precision GNSS base station applications. It integrates the company’s 3D Choke Ring technology, as well as a Septentrio Mosaic-X5 GNSS receiver (and hence support from Septentrio Rx Tools for monitoring and saving data from the unit). “Its key feature is the choke ring, which gives a phase centre variation of roughly 0.5 mm, and it is fully calibrated by GEO++,” said Ken MacLeod. “It also comes with an integrated Septentrio Mosaic X5 GNSS receiver plus an optional radome, and we believe it is the first fullsized, high-precision, smart choke-ring antenna on the market worldwide.” Choke rings are an antenna structure technology, originally developed at NASA JPL and optimised for mitigating multipath effects from ground bounce and reflections. Waves arriving at low elevation angles are suppressed by the choke ring’s high surface impedance, hence strongly attenuating multipath. Augmenting the multipath mitigation effect is an antenna element designed for both strong gain at the zenith and weaker gain at the horizon. This ensures the base station’s radio-frequency GNSS signal is cleaner and stronger due to the reduction in multipath. The VCS6000XF has been designed with a Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) interface, so that customers can simply plug it into a PoE network node. A USB port is also present. Additionally, a 32 GB flash drive is included for local storage of observation data, which can be accessed and transmitted over the network interface. The Septentrio Rx Tools suite supports conditional (password-protected) NTRIP (Networked Transport of RTCM via Internet Protocol) server access. YellowScan showcased its Navigator, a green-light bathymetric laser scanner, designed to be lightweight and ahead of market requirements in such survey technologies, particularly as surveyors increasingly engage in UAV-based coastal-erosion studies and other vital environmental research. “It weighs 3.8 kg, or 4.2 kg when equipped with a battery, making it significantly lighter than most other bathymetry Lidars, and it allows you to scan down to 2 Secchi depths – twice the depth that can be seen in the visible light spectrum,” said Morgane Selve. “We researched and found this market is rich with heavy solutions for bathymetry, and given the prevalence of bathymetry UAVs, it was about time to design a new payload with reduced size and weight. This enables integrators to achieve longer mission flight times and, in many cases, seamlessly integrate the payload into their UAV platforms.” As well as using a smaller IMU than in prior products, the Navigator’s other components were redesigned in-house to achieve its size and weight targets during development. December/January 2025 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Sony’s IXL-LR1 is a UAV camera weighing 243 g, able to output images as raw JPEG or HEIF files, and stream videos with H.265 or H.264 compression
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