French company Bertin Technologies is currently putting a prototype of its SmartBall, a small VTOL UAV, through final testing.
With funding from the French Direction Générale de l'Armement (DGA), Bertin has developed a spherical drone designed for aerial reconnaissance with three main objectives: keep costs low; make it very easy to pilot; and design it for use above urban areas.
Further testing is needed to finish development on areas such as robustness in difficult situations such as high winds; obstacle detection; and the interface between the pilot/operator and the drone.
Lightweight
The result is the lightweight "flying ball" - it weighs only 1.5kg, is extremely compact with a 300mm diameter, and a payload of 0.2kg, enough to accommodate a small camera. Its 30min autonomy will enable it to make reconnaissance flights block by block and see what terrestrial robots cannot see.
Mission objectives may include observation; intelligence gathering; detection of nuclear or chemical weapons; and communications and electronic warfare. Future versions may include GPS and an altimeter, whereas the operator is currently the person who manually controls altitude. Other improvements may include a movable camera to enhance visual search and image quality.
Onboard
This is where Bertin's core capability in camera and image treatment will come useful. TACIT, a self contained, remotely con-trolled, onboard equipment intended for real-time detection of chemical clouds using infra red technology also allows the tracking of gas in space and time and classifying the nature of the gas.
Another development by Bertin is an infra-red intelligent retina, which provides more autonomy to surveillance systems by saving energy: it consists of a two-camera system, one of which is infra red, and a memory register of the area under control which is loaded pixel by pixel.
Alert criteria, such as movement or behaviour, are programmed to trigger the "awakening" of the normal camera, which consumes 300Watts, by the infra red sensor, which only consumes 1Watt of power.
Source: Flight Daily News