California’s Arcturus (booth 807) has launched a pair of new unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) which appear to be pitched against the AAI RQ-7 Shadow.
The Cat-25 and Jump-25 will feature the new TASE500 gimballed payload from Cloud Cap Technology, and Arcturus hopes to be the first company to fly with the sensors, says president and chief executive D’Milo Hallerberg.
Development activities on both UAVs have already begun, says Hallerberg, with first flight previsioned for the fourth quarter.
The Cat-25 is a standard catapult-launched model that builds on the company’s smaller T-20 line. It features a four-stroke Honda engine that will deliver endurance of around 12h, when fitted with the TASE500 payload and other sensors. This will rise to nearly 20h with a lighter load, it says.
Hallerberg says the new air vehicles have been designed around Cloud Cap’s new system, which weighs in at around 28lb (12.7kg), against what he claims is around 37lb for the current industry benchmark.
“In my world, 9lb is at least two hours of extra endurance,” he says.
Meanwhile, the Jump-25 takes its recently launched vertical take-off and landing quadrotor technology and pairs it with a larger airframe. Endurance is now estimated at about 12h.
Engines for both models are undergoing tests at Arcturus’s factory, “and we are getting to a place where we feel comfortable with it” says Hallerberg.
“Every company has its strengths, and for us designing and tooling a new airframe is not a stressful thing,” he says. “It’s what we are good at.”
It aims to be able to deliver both platforms from the first quarter of 2015.
Source: Flight Daily News
