Patience is a virtue that Hunt Valley, Maryland-based unmanned aircraft systems-maker AAI hopes will pay off in the long run. While sales of the company's 175kg (385lb) Shadow 200 military-grade UAS are strong, officials must navigate a slow path to gaining similar opportunities in the US commercial market, where small vehicles like the 14.5kg Aerosonde offer the most potential.
AAI, a subsidiary of Textron, is currently working off a backlog of more than 30 Shadow systems for the US Army and Marines in Hunt Valley. Each "system" includes four aircraft, one ground control station and one rail-mounted launcher.
Worldwide, spending on UAVs is expected to more than double over the next decade, from $3.4 billion to $7.3 billion a year, according to the Teal Group. Steve Zaloga, Teal senior analyst, told Flight International that mini unmanned air vehicles, similar to AeroVironment's 1.8kg RQ-11 Raven or the Aerosonde, will sell at a rate of about 2,000 a year through 2017, primarily to US customers.
LACK OF REGULATION
Virtually all of that spending, however, will take place in the military arena because there are no generic certification and flight rules for unmanned vehicles on the civil side. "There'll be no mini-UAV commercial market in the USA until the FAA establishes the ground rules," says Zaloga.
Although the Federal Aviation Administration and industry, including AAI, last month launched a committee to craft rules for small UAS, the work is not expected to be completed and a final rule issued until 2011 or later. The "crawl before you walk" approach in the USA contrasts with nations like Australia, where Aerosondes can "fly anywhere in uninhabited areas at less than 400ft [120m] with a phone call," says Steve Flach, AAI's vice-president for small UAS. AAI builds an average of four Aerosondes a month in Australia.
Rather than sit on the sidelines, however, AAI is working to demonstrate UAS capabilities in the USA within the military and research communities, with the expectation that the commercial marketplace will take note of the capabilities.
"Our strategic plan is to go from public use into commercial use," says Richard Fagan, AAI manager of planning for commercial UAS business. "It's a practical approach to getting into the national airspace system. It will get people used to the technology."
A near-term public-use demonstration with the Aerosonde will take place on Virginia's eastern shore in June as part of a contract with NASA to provide persistent launch site surveillance and vehicle splashdown tracking (to pinpoint the location for recovery) for a scientific sounding rocket launch.
Powered by a two-stroke 24cc gasoline-powered engine, the Aerosonde can fly as high as 20,000ft and as long at 30h with its maximum fuel loading of 3.6kg. Payload capacity with full fuel is about 2.7kg, says AAI. Currently, a pilot must fly the Aerosonde for take-off and belly landing, although the company is now testing an autonomous take-off and landing capability. Once airborne, an operator controls the flightpath using waypoint commands.
AAI is also gearing up to support this year's hurricane season with NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In early November last year, NASA and NOAA used an Aerosonde to fly into and monitor Hurricane Noel at altitudes as low as 300ft, marking the first time an unmanned aircraft was used to study the inner core of a hurricane, says NOAA.
TEMPERATURE SENSORS
The flight lasted more than 17h, ending only when mission planners decided to expend all of the aircraft's fuel in the storm rather than lose data by returning to base. As with the Noel mission, this year's Aerosonde will carry a downward-looking Heitronics KT11 infrared sensor that measures temperature. Aerosonde's cost is in the neighbourhood of $100,000, depending on the payload package, plus another $75,000-100,000 for the ground control station, says AAI.
Funding from the National Science Foundation is already in place for a mission in Antarctica in spring 2009. During the seven-week campaign, scientists will equip one Aerosonde with an IR ice flow sensor, magnetometer and GPS navigation unit for environmental studies. Fagan says that researchers on site will be able to swap out the IR sensor for an optical camera for wildlife tracking studies during the test.
AAI would also like to exploit the capabilities of its military systems for commercial applications. AAI is developing a method of using on-board sensors to help officials reset training ranges, a job now done by troops driving around in trucks.
The company is also proposing to develop a removable animal tracking payload for state wildlife resource management. "Currently, they put Shadows up in the air and tell a guy to go out in a Hummer as a target," says Fagan. "This will give them a real mission."
Source: Flight International
