ATE has unveiled a new hand launched, electrically powered short range UAV – designated Kiwit – being developed for both military and civil applications in the African environment.
The development effort is emphasizing low unit costs and rapid prototyping, with initial work only commencing in May this year says Carel de Beer, ATE director of special projects.
An initial prototype made its debut flight at the end of June de Beer says, with the demonstrator unveiled at the African Aerospace and Defence exhibition in Cape Town 20-24 September being the third built and tested thus far.
The company plans to continue pursuing the rapid spiral evolution of the system, but anticipates being able to supply a complete production ready system within some three months if a customer wanted to purchase immediately de Beer says.
The rapidity of the process is considered central to achieving the low target-price for the system, with an emphasis on the use of commercial components and low-cost production methods.
The airframe is an all-composite, modular structure intended to allow rapid assembly and disassembly in field conditions, but also supporting the rapid evolution of the system by allowing swap-out of components as better solutions are identified.
Lessons emerging from the approach are being fed back into other ATE programmes says de Beer, including the firm's Vulture tactical UAV, which is now progressing into full production for the South African Army
Kiwit is a derivative of the African native word “Kiewiet”, meaning plover.
The demonstrator displayed at AAD has a similar configuration to the Elbit Skylark UAV, with the sensor pod suspended beneath a slim line fuselage which has been reduced purely to structural functionality.
No dimensions for a production standard system have yet been released. However the AAD demonstrator had a wing span of approximately 1.8m (6ft) and a length of 1m. The main wing dismantles into two parts while the central fuselage is a wound composite tube approximately 4cm in diameter with the electric engine mounted at the nose. The tail-plane is a V-configuration which slots into the back of the fuselage tube.
Further refinements to the configuration are possible de Beer says, with construction and testing of a pre-production version incorporated into the three month countdown to having a commercially ready version.
The UAV will have an endurance of around one hour and a 5km (3mi) operational radius. The system will use a ruggedised laptop computer as its ground station. The UAV will be capable of both real time data transfer to the ground or on-board storage de Beer says, with the later approach anticipated to be of more interest to the commercial marketplace.
ATE also wants the system to be capable of being used by operators with minimal training and is working on an intuitive mission-planning system coupled with waypoint-based navigation as part of this approach.
The South African-based ABAT company says it is currently in discussions with ATE about potentially fitting Kiwit with its locally developed autopilot systems.
De Beer says that the primary commercial application envisaged for the UAV is in pipeline and power line inspection in remote parts of Africa, roles that he characterises as being of “limited duration”. A typical power line application would involve using the UAV to assess the condition of power lines in mountainous terrain, removing the necessity for ground-based teams to spend extended periods traveling through that same environment to examine what could well be very short sections of cable.
ATE is considering the establishment of a commercial services approach to developing the civil market de Beer says, though this remains dependent on current discussions with the South African Civil Aviation Authority.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
