107 007 – including its control loops, autopilot and navigation systems – began from a blank sheet in 2018, after Vasilii and his colleagues conceived the FIXAR technology during a customer’s project, thereafter introducing their first prototype for it (the client declined the unusual design and r&d it needed). “We released that first UAV in 2020, using no open source code; it’s a very unique set of algorithms, not just for our proprietary approach to VTOLtransitioning, but for features like being able to navigate without a magnetometer or compass,” Fainveits says. Development timeline The 025’s development targets were steered to form a compromise between what FIXAR’s engineers wanted to accomplish and what customers seemed to want; the latter being uncovered via feedback on usage of the 007. “That meant the 025’s key operating features, payload capacities, missionplanning interfaces and so on were engineered to directly cover what customers seemed to suggest were shortfalls in what the 7 kg 007 UAV could accomplish with its 60 km battery range, 59 minute flight time and 2 kg payload capacity,” Fainveits says. “We also received feedback on the main operational bottlenecks, and understood that the 025 had to be as easy as possible to set up and use, which fed into the design of the UAV, as well as training programmes. So our product engineers had significant freedom to be creative in how they shaped and iterated the 025, so long as they still addressed all these explicit market needs.” Given that the 007 was always going to be a trial product, meant to inform a better successor, the first design document for the eventual 025 was drawn up immediately after the 007’s release in 2020. Over the following year, FIXAR filled in that document to completion with feedback information from the 007’s customers, and it built the first scale prototype of the 025 concept over the next six months. Thus, in 2022, the company began flight trials with the first 025 prototype. Fainveits describes this prototype as having roughly the same total wing area as the 007, when both the triangular box wing and the fuselage’s blended wing body are aggregated. “That meant it was smaller than the 007 in overall size, for both platforms to be equal in their aerodynamic surfaces, and so those trials were a major triggering point in terms of whether we would go with the unusual box-wing configuration or just make a scaled-up version of the 007 if the former architecture wasn’t successful,” Fainveits recounts. Success, the company decided, meant at least a 15% improvement in efficiency. Hence, as well as controlling for wing area, FIXAR integrated the same batteries, motors, motor controllers, propellers and payload weight into the scale prototype as in the 007. The scale prototype then flew roughly 12 minutes longer than the 007 (22% more flight time on the same powertrain and aero area), validating that the 025 design concept was significantly more aerodynamically efficient than the more conventionally designed 007. “With the design validated, we then had to make a scale prototype, not just to validate full-scale performance but FIXAR 025 | Digest Uncrewed Systems Technology | February/March 2025 For the 025 to have a 2.8 m wingspan today, FIXAR undertook steady development, first with a small-scale prototype and then with a 1 m-wingspan scale prototype
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