24 Silicon chip Australia’s electronics magazine siliconchip.com.au
rotor design with a pusher propeller.
It is still under development – see
Fig.36 and the video titled “Sikor-
sky - Boeing Future Vertical Lift: The
Way Forward” avi: siliconchip.com.
au/link/aap8
VTOL kit for
Textron Aerosonde
Aerosonde Pty Ltd was an Austral-
ian-owned company, but it is now
owned by Textron Systems in the USA
(it still has Australian headquarters).
The original Aerosonde company is
now called Textron Systems Austral-
ia Pty Ltd.
It is offering a vertical take-off and
landing (VTOL) kit to existing custom-
ers of their Aerosonde SUAS (small
unmanned aerial system).
The platform becomes the Aero-
sonde HQ (Hybrid Quadrotor) after
the addition of the conversion kit,
which consists of twin booms, each
with two vertical lift rotors and bat-
teries (Fig.37).
Once the aircraft is in forward flight,
the four rotors rotate to align with the
flight direction, to minimise air re-
sistance.
It has a Lycoming EL-005 75cc heavy
fuel engine, allowing it to make a tran-
sition from vertical to forward flight at
around 15-50m altitude and giving an
endurance of eight hours with a 4.5kg
payload, a service ceiling of 10,000ft
(3000m) and a cruise speed of 45-65
knots (83-120km/h).
Aerosonde UAVs (not necessarily
the HQ model) are used by many cus-
tomers including the Australian Army,
the US Marine Corps, US Air Force
and US Special Operations Command.
They also have commercial users such
as the oil and gas industry (Fig.38).
Applications include day and night
full-motion video capture, communi-
cations relay and special intelligence
payloads; these can all be conducted
on the one flight if necessary.
See the video titled “Aerosonde HQ
Advantages” via siliconchip.com.au/
link/aap9Raytheon Coyote
The Raytheon Coyote is a low-cost,
tube-launched expendable unmanned
aerial system that is also capable ofbeing launched in multiple units as a
“swarm” (see Fig.39). This is known
as LOCUST (LOw-Cost Uav Swarm
Technology).
Coyote can be used to destroy other
unmanned aerial systems using a seek-
er and warhead, or can be launched as
a swarm for intelligence, surveillance
and reconnaissance duties. It has also
been used to acquire information about
hurricanes.
See the video titled “LOCUST Demo”
via siliconchip.com.au/link/aapaAustralian Army, Navy and
Air Force drone racing teams
A drone racing program was hosted
at the Airshow with teams from the
Army, Navy and Air Force, plus a New
Zealand military team as well as some
others (Fig.40).
The events were held in a 10,000m^3
arena. Drone racing is authorised and
even encouraged by the Australian
Army and the first ever Military In-
ternational Drone Racing Tournament
(www.army.gov.au/MIDRT) was held
in Sydney in October 2018.Fig.37: the Textron Systems Aerosonde HQ SUAS is
visible at the top of this photo. It has four vertical lift
rotors for vertical takeoff and landing, plus wings and a
pusher prop for forward flight.
Fig.38: a close-up of the engine in the civilian version of
Aerosonde.Fig.39 (left): the Raytheon Coyote, a
low-cost, tube-launched expendable
unmanned aerial system.Fig.40 (right): a member of the Army
drone racing team at the Drone ArenaSC