Sponsored by The British Robotics Seed Fund
http: www.britbots.com/fund
————————————————————————
24 Nov 22. Autonomous UAV winch trialled at AWE for British Army. A novel air-ground payload transfer device intended for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has been trialled at the British Army Warfighting Experiment (AWE) Sustain & Protect (S&P) programme at Portsmouth Naval Base.
During AWE on 22 November, BMT Global demonstrated Sparrow, a prototype robotic unit that enables the autonomous delivery and collection of payloads from a UAV.
Attached to a UAV, Sparrow can autonomously descend and ascend to deliver and collect payloads, thereby it allows the UAV to remain at a suitable height while avoiding the difficult urban terrain beneath, James Campbell, Sparrow project lead at BMT Global, told Janes at AWE.
Campbell said that the system is actually “best described as a suspended UAV”, this is because it has four fans like a quadcopter and is fully autonomous, able to manoeuvre itself, and identify objects on the ground. The key difference with Sparrow is that the fans are designed to counter wind and enable manoeuvrability, rather than for lift. (Source: Janes)
22 Nov 22. Baykar’s Drone Kizilelma Takes Runway for 1st Time. Bayraktar Kizilelma, transferred to Akinci Flight Training and Test Center in the northwestern province of Tekirdag’s Çorlu district, first successfully completed taxi and ground driving tests with safety ties.
Then, the first test runs without safety ties was directed by Selçuk Bayraktar, the company’s chief technology officer.
Kizilelma is planned to make a difference on the battlefield especially with its “landing and take-off capability on ships with short runways.”
Developed considering short-runway ships such as the TCG Anadolu, Türkiye’s first LHD-class vessel, the fighter jet will play an important role in overseas missions thanks to this feature. It will have a low radar signature thanks to its design.
Kizilelma will be able to carry 1,500 kilograms of payload (weapons and devices, etc.). Its flight range is 930 kilometers, while the operating altitude was declared as 10,668 meters. It can operate in the air for five hours and has a maximum speed of 900 km/h.
It will be equipped with the locally made active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar.
Unlike unmanned aerial vehicles, Kizilelma will also provide effectiveness against air targets with domestic air-air munitions. With these abilities, it will change the balance on the battlefield.
It was showcased at Teknofest, Türkiye’s largest aerospace and technology festival, in the northern province of Samsun, attracting great attention despite ongoing design and development efforts.
The first flight of Kizilelma is expected to take place in 2023, according to Bayraktar.
The Turkish drones got worldwide fame amid the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War that broke out on Sept. 27, 2020, between Armenia and Azerbaijan when Türkiye, a rising drone power in the international arena, supplied its ally Azerbaijan with UAVs for use in the conflict and significantly contributed to Azerbaijan’s victory. (Source: ASD Network)
22 Nov 22. Ocius Bluebottle used on live operations for the first time. The Bluebottle Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV), designed and manufactured by Sydney-based Ocius Technologies, has been used on live operations by the ADF for the first time. A Bluebottle USV was used by the Army’s 7th Regional Force Surveillance Group (RFSG) rotation to provide a 24/7 on-water surveillance capability, with the flexibility to be readily manoeuvred to respond to emerging surveillance requirements or tasks. An Ocius employee was also embedded in the RFSG headquarters.
During the two-week deployment in October, the RFSG contingent conducted surveillance and reconnaissance on and around remote islands off north Western Australia for foreign fishing vessels and evidence of illegal activities.
Major Alexander Brent, the Maritime Border Command (MBC) Liaison Officer to Rotation 7, said the use of the Bluebottles, and the embedding of an Ocius employee within the task unit headquarters, added significant capability to the operation.
“In addition to persistent surveillance, we were able to use the Bluebottles to conduct more specific reconnaissance tasks, such as beach landing site reconnaissance and avenues of approach to specific islands in advance of the ground force,” Major Brent said.
“By controlling the Bluebottles remotely, the ground force was free to be able to move independently of the USVs and focus on other tasks, such as onshore reconnaissance and patrolling, while still benefiting from what the Bluebottles collected.”
The trial will likely inform future teaming with unmanned maritime assets to support amphibious and littoral combat manoeuvres.
As one of three Regional Force Surveillance Units which form the 2nd Division’s RFSG, NORFORCE Patrol Master, Captain Stephen Sewell, said the efforts increased situational awareness of illegal activities in the region: “Working alongside the Bluebottle uncrewed surveillance vessels, as well as Australian Border Force (ABF) Dash-8 aircraft, the information our contingent gathered will enable potential responses from other government agencies.” (Source: Rumour Control)
————————————————————————-
The British Robotics Seed Fund is the first SEIS-qualifying investment fund specialising in UK-based robotics businesses. The focus of the fund is to deliver superior returns to investors by making targeted investments in a mixed basket of the most innovative and disruptive businesses that are exploiting the new generation of robotics technologies in defence and other sector applications.
Automation and robotisation are beginning to drive significant productivity improvements in the global economy heralding a new industrial revolution. The fund allows investors to benefit from this exciting opportunity, whilst also delivering the extremely attractive tax reliefs offered by the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS). For many private investors, the amount of specialist knowledge required to assess investments in robotics is not practical and hence investing through a fund structure makes good sense.
The fund appoints expert mentors to work with each investee company to further maximise the chance of success for investors. Further details are available on request.
www.britbots.com/fund
————————————————————————