Unmanned air systems are the way forward for surveillance in multiple domains. Unmanned flights bring a great degree of flexibility to the operational capabilities of the force utilizing them, especially as they free the most important resource of the flighted operations, the trained pilot.
As the prominence of unmanned surveillance increased, the availability of different types of aircraft has also increased the possibility of varied fleet composition for the customer to meet the specific challenges.
One of the most versatile platforms available for the purpose is a Vertical Take-Off and Landing unmanned aerial system. As a vertical take-off and landing capability obliterates the need of run-way for the aircraft to take-off and land and the various allied costs in the operation of run-ways.
There are multiple advantages that a VTOL platform brings to the table in cases where the operational requirements of the customers don’t exceed more than a few hours of endurance, flight radius of few hundred kilometres etc. The major advantages can be listed as follows.
Also, continuous monitoring of the area prone to weather systems, allows for having accurate information regarding the possible occurrences of such events and help in mitigating the same.
The proposed VTOL UAS is a Best Value solution for any user in the land based or maritime environment. It provides the capabilities and environmental durability required for sea or land basing, provides excellent mobility, is much more affordable than other systems, and has both platform and payload growth capabilities.
The Proposed VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) Platform is a multi purpose, single engine unmanned helicopter system below 150 kg maximum take off weight, that can be operated within or beyond visual line of sight.
The unique design features of the SDO 50V2 provide a superior payload capacity, prolonged endurance, stable flight patterns and a high degree of safety features. Due to the intermeshing rotor system a tail rotor is not required thus resulting in a higher empty weight/payload ratio compared to other helicopter systems. Our SDO 50V2 therefore, is able to lift a remarkable payload of up to 50 kg.
An integrated autopilot system allows autonomous take-off and landing procedures as well as autonomous flight patterns following pre-set trajectories.
We have studied the requirements for integrating our unmanned helicopter equipped with suitable sensors, data processing and software applications to form a surveillance system to monitor oil spills and other water pollution.
