RigiTech Eiger UAV | Digest “All those modems, transponders and GNSSs mean we have 14 antennas distributed across each aircraft: four for comms protruding down from each of the two VTOL motor booms, three for GNSS up from the fuselage – one for the transponder – one for remote ID, and one for adding external modules. “That may sound ridiculous, but connectivity and positioning are critical. Having that many antennas, precisely distanced from each other across the airframe, means that when Eiger is on the ground, in the air, tilted left, right, up or down, there’s no shadowing or polarisation losses keeping the many managers and technicians involved from tracking the drone when they need to.” Extensive computer simulations based on first principles of RF engineering informed initial antenna placements, including correct shielding and ground planes across the airframe, with thirdparty laboratories providing further insights (via anechoic chamber, etc) for optimisations in the final UAV designs. Buzzing the tower Navigation, transponder and ATC data are delivered through these data links on the UAVs and the ground, and displayed on a map in a Control Tower panel in the GCS dashboard (which, being native to the cloud, contains cloud-hosted panels for pre-flight checklists and part maintenance schedules, remotely accessible by individuals with the appropriate logins and permissions). “That means dispatchers loading packages on the ground can confirm they’ve done visual checks, the person in the operating centre can confirm they’ve checked for safe airspace and weather conditions, and other checks of that nature can happen, before the remote operator activates the launch sequence,” Klaptocz says. “Our traffic data includes real-time addition and pinging of any aircraft’s ADS-B, FLARM or remote ID data onto the display map. Receiving that data and sending it to the cloud is somewhat easy, but a lot of work went into the UAV and into the cloud to make sure we could display the data in a useful, ATC-inspired way that’s cleaned-up for visual ‘noise’. We engineered for interfacing with multiple air traffic data providers and arbitrating between them, so each aircraft is displayed with one definite position, based on multiple confirmatory sources.” For added analysis, the Control Tower map can be toggled to show distances between the Eigers and non-controlled aircraft (calculated in real time by a function in the RigiCloud), and tracks of non-controlled aircrafts’ last reported positions over the prior 30 seconds, to then make estimations of whether those other air vehicles pose any reason for concern, with automated warnings and other responses within the software based on ASTM standards for detectand-avoid. Furthermore, since all operator software lives on the cloud and is permanently connected to the internet, RigiTech has developed an API, which, in addition to enabling map data, ATC information, weather reports and more to feed into RigiCloud, allows the user to export data to others, such as their own fleet-management solution (should they wish to continue using it), other UTM solutions or authorities, or potential partners and customers. Autonomy and automation Rather than all of RigiTech’s software being a complex ecosystem of separate modules, the overall logistics solution involves intricate interplay between the cloud, GCS and UAV portions of the company’s UAS offering. For instance, the alert and warning displays for when non-controlled 55 Uncrewed Systems Technology | April/May 2025 RigiCloud includes an auto-planning tool for producing and submitting SORAs, as well as preflight and maintenance checklists, UTM systems and more
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