Berry Aviation hosted the SHOP Show San Marcos earlier this year so it was great to see them in Raeford.
Last year they added an Unmanned Aerial System Division which provides training, operations and support for both fixed wing and vertical lift platforms in Group 1, 2, & 3 UAS, as well as counter-UAS.
They also can perform payload integration and design modifications. For example, they’ve modified the DJI drone seen above to accept the SOCOM modular payload.
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. — Explosive Ordnance Disposal technicians from the 707th Ordnance Company (EOD) were among the first U.S. Army EOD Soldiers to conduct field testing with the Skyraider Unmanned Aerial System.
EOD Soldiers from the company put the UAS through its paces from a village in Training Area 4 on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, Aug. 23 – Sept. 2.
According to Capt. William R. Hartman, the commander of the 707th EOD Company, the UAS provided greater visibility of the heavily forested training area.
“They can mostly be used for reconnaissance of terrain and to identify possible explosive hazards,” said Hartman, a native of Reading, Pennsylvania, who has deployed to the U.S. Central Command area of operations.
Hartman said the UAS was also used to deploy lightweight robots called Throwbots that helped his EOD Soldiers to identify hazards in less accessible areas and structures.
The 707th EOD Company is part of the 3rd EOD Battalion, 71st EOD Group and 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosives (CBRNE) Command. Based 19 installations in 16 states, 20th CBRNE Command is home to 75 percent of the Army’s EOD and CBRN units, as well as the CBRNE Analytical and Remediation Activity, 1st Area Medical Laboratory, Nuclear Disablement Teams and Weapons of Mass Destruction Coordination Teams.
Soldiers and civilians from the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland-headquartered command work with joint, interagency and allied partners to defeat CBRNE threats around the world. Since 2003, 20th CBRNE Command EOD Soldiers have partnered with U.S. Navy EOD technicians to disable hundreds of thousands of improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hartman said the highlight of the fielding was connecting Light Detection and Ranging or LDIR technology to the UAS system and using it to map terrain.
The EOD company commander said the UAS could be a great use in a combat zone.
“We could definitely benefit from its capabilities in that environment,” said Hartman.
By Walter Ham
World’s smallest wide-area motion imagery (WAMI) system, MicroKestrel delivers persistent surveillance to a whole new group of military and homeland security sensor operations
FAIRFAX, Va.— September 23, 2021 — Logos Technologies LLC, a leader in wide-area motion imagery (WAMI), announced today that it will be unveiling its new MicroKestrel sensor for small, tethered, multirotor-type unmanned aerial systems (UASs) at the upcoming Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Meeting & Exposition, in Washington, D.C.
When mounted on a tethered UAS and hovering at 200 feet, a single MicroKestrel can image three square kilometers, tracking every vehicle and detecting every moving dismount within its 180-degree field of regard. The WAMI system can also cue high-definition video cameras for close-in inspection should an operator require a positive identification of a target.
“The amazing thing, though, is MicroKestrel’s weight. At just under 5 pounds, the new WAMI system is so light that some tethered UAS can actually accommodate two units, each pointed in a different direction,” said Doug Rombough, VP of Business Development for Logos Technologies. “In such a doubled-up configuration, you get twice the coverage area and a 360-degree field of view.”
The idea of getting WAMI on a small, tethered unmanned aerial vehicles once seemed impossible. Now, these sensors will be able to go on tethered UAVs or free-flying UAVs that have been connected to a third-party tethering station. This greatly expands the types of operators who will be able to use WAMI.
“People who would never have access to runway or catapult-launched UAVs, let alone big Predators, can pop open a container, set up a tethered UAV, and launch a WAMI sensor into the air,” said Rombough. “Think about what that means for base protection, event security, or other mission sets.”
Logos Technologies will be showcasing MicroKestrel and other sensor systems at the company’s booth (No. 1143) at AUSA, on October 11-13.
Located in the Edgar Brothers stand, Overwatch Defense showed me their PHOLOS VTOL UAS.
It features an onbord EO/IR camera, there are multiple TLR 9 payloads available.
With a loiter time of 45 minutes, it can be launched from a position of cover to observe or attack.
As I said in last week’s opener for the show, the UK military does a great job of supporting DSEi. Here are two of the systems they had on display, the Spiral 1 RPV and Watchkeeper UAV.
This Remote Patrol Vehicle is built by Marlborough Communications Limited and consists of their Mission Adaptable Platform System (MAPS) Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV). Spiral 1 is an experiment to determine future robotics requirements in these areas: resupplying platoon soldiers, reducing load burden on soldiers, casualty evacuation and power export for charging and supply of platoon level electronics.
Based on Elbit’s Hermes 450, the Watchkeeper UAV is fitted with an EO/IR sensor, has a cruising speed of 77 knots (143 km/h), can operate at an altitude of 16,000 feet, and can operate up to 150 km from the Ground Control Station, but multiple stations can be linked to extend the range.
Australia’s DefendTex has introduced the Drone-155, a drone launched from a custom 155mm tube which, once aloft, deploys four propellers to loiter over targets.
Featuring a GPS autopilot, it offers up to 120 minutes of flight time with a top speed of 40 m/s. The max payload is 20 kg. It can be fitted with ISR, EW, Kinetic, RPG40 multiple launcher, laser designator or smoke/flash payloads. It can also be used to deploy the? DRONE40 described below.
The Drone-40 is normally launched from 40mm Grenade Launchers and can stay aloft for up to 60 minutes, featuring a top speed of 20 m/s. Current payloads include ISR, HE Frag, Fuel-Air, Anti-Armor, Flashbang, Smoke, and C-UAS.
DSEI, September 15th, 2021 – TEKEVER is demonstrating during DSEI (London, 14-17, 2021) its new TEKEVER ATLAS, a tool to enhance Unmanned Aerial Systems missions. It provides advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) analytics onboard for real-time and historical processing of data. Designed for key decision-makers, TEKEVER ATLAS delivers intelligence onboard, as well as ground-based tools, and assures that the right person gets the right information at the right time.
“TEKEVER ATLAS is a tool that extends the capabilities of TEKEVER’s unmanned technology. It allows you to collect all the information and to explore it after it’s been collected. ATLAS is a good name for the systems because it holds all the information that we are gathering about the world. It connects to multiple UAS systems at same time to collect data of the sensors that are on board (optical video, infrared video, radar, multispectral sensors, static aperture radars, for example). That information comes over a private network and gets collect in our AI/ML-powered datacenter, where all the information is stored and tagged”, explains Paulo Ferro, TEKEVER Director of Business Development
Decision-makers will be able to plan missions more effectively by easily including parameters such as areas of interest, objectives, and targets. This will enable the end-user user to review the specific details of any mission, and to easily retrieve historical data necessary as evidence for prosecution.
MSI-Defence Systems Limited (MSI-DSL), the developer of leading-edge weapon and underwater systems and the European leading robotics and autonomous system developer Milrem Robotics jointly present highly mobile, unmanned kinetic C-UAV capabilities at DSEI 2021.
Utilising Milrem Robotics’ THeMIS unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) integrated with MSI-DSL’ Remote Weapon Systems (RWS) and Electrical Optical Sensor Systems the companies are offering a step change in countering mini-UAV, loitering munitions or other small difficult to detect airborne targets.
The highly mobile, unmanned C-UAS systems will be capable of carrying payloads from 7.62 to 30 mm including the Northrop Grumman M230 cannon and Thales LMM missiles. It will also be able to find and engage larger air threats as well as ground targets, even if armoured. All without the operator being exposed to the threats.
“MSI-DSL and Milrem are committed to providing ‘cutting edge’ capabilities to the operator providing a highly deployable system with unique lethality and survivability. The autonomous nature of the system enables the operator to Sense, Identify, Decide and Effect over a wide area without placing the operator in areas of undue risk,” said Russell Gregory, Head of Strategy, Industrial Relations and Market Development at MSI-DSL.
“In recent conflicts there has been an increase in the usage of drones and loitering munition against various military targets. The employment of this type of equipment has made low-level conflicts more lethal. Utilizing unmanned ground systems with intelligent functions to counter these new threats helps increase force protection, provide flexibility to tactical units to engage aerial and/or land targets, and ultimately reduce loss of life,” said Captain (res) Jüri Pajuste, Defence Research and Development Director at Milrem Robotics.
The unmanned C-UAS platforms provide highly effective protection for both tactical and static sites for deployed assets and critical infrastructure.
The first jointly developed system is on display at DSEI 2021 in London 13-14 September in Milrem Robotics’ stand no H4-122.
