A2TECH develops new helicopter-UAV

A2TECH announce the start of the production of the first prototype, the RV-VTOL25 'Explorer' serial number 001, wholly designed as an cost effective small rotary-wing UAV to be employed for civil applications with a wide range of customer payload systems. A militarized versione, code word 'TAIPAN' will be available to selected OEM customer also. Development work of the system begun early 2008 in collaboration with the italian Civil Defence 'Emergency Flight Department'. First roll-out and flight testings are scheduled for early spring period.

The RV-VTOL25 rotary-wing system, the direct successor of the fixed-wing RV-160TD project, which further development was stopped for handling issues in the civil defence application scenarious, will provide wide- area 'experimentations', permitting civil and military forces to enhance their understanding about the potential use of small VTOL UAVs and to trial a variety of payload, communication and flight control systems in local, arid, artic, tropic and high altitude regions, without the needs of prepared or unprepared runways. The RV-VTOL25 'Explorer' has a carbon- aramid honeycomb composite aerostructure, a 2.5 m rotor diameter and is capable of carrying between 10-25 kg of payload, spread among a interchangeable nose payload section, ventral fuselage mission bay (capable of carring a 19" 3U rack cage) and stub wings with pylons for an endurance of up to 2.5 h. On standard, the nose section will be delivered with the CamVISION Multi Mode Imaging System 20 (MMIS-20) gyrostabilized gimbal, equipped with an E/O zoom daylight, an IR and laser rangefinder sensor. Other sensors, such megapixel or multispectral cameras can be integrated on customer requirements. For broadcasting, film and movie maker customers, a special nose section are available. The C2 data link is based on the rugged and reliable CANaerospace command & control protocol. Ground Control Station is based on the RealityVISION - Universal Ground Control Cockpit family, ranging from a portable knee-pad size up to a mobile full-imersive cockpit style environment.

The RV-VTOL25 'Explorer' small rotary-wing UAV system, which includes the UAV platform, DARVIN A3 avionic suite, RealityVISION - Universal Ground Control Cockpit, CamVISION camera suite, remote video terminal and support for one year, can be flown pilot-in-loop or autonomously. The base communication configuration will allow an operating distance of 10 km away from its take-off place.

A2TECH is looking for partners in different countries to build longterm relationships for the employement of the RV-VTOL25 systems and the RealityVISION Ground Control Cockpit technologies.

Source: A2TECH