1/1/2018 $120,000 fuel cell tilt-rotor UAV designed for smart cities

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$120,000 fuel cell tilt-rotor UAV designed for

smart cities
Mike Hanlon | September 27th, 2017

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Unique Aero-Tech Corporation's tolt-rotor UAS (Credit: Unique Aero-Tech Corporation) protection against the flu

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Urban aerial surveillance capabilities are already seen as a crucial element

in the information mosaic required for any smart city of the future, and last
week's TM Forum Smart City In Focus Conference in Yinchuan (China) saw
the first showing of an Unmanned Aerial System that has been purpose-
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1/1/2018 $120,000 fuel cell tilt-rotor UAV designed for smart cities

This "best of both worlds" capability is not without precedence in the UAV
world, but the only working unmanned aircraft with tilt-rotor capabilities
prior to now have been the Korean Aerospace Research Institute's TR 100
and TR 60 experimental UAVs, bot of which are considerably larger than
the offering from Unique Aero-Tech Corporation (UATC).

That's the Korean Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) TR 60 pictured

below, and although the aircraft's initial application is primarily seen as a
tool for defense, the roadmap for future deployment encompasses
monitoring power lines, roads and other infrastructure.
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The TR 60 had its first successful ship landing last month and there's little
doubt that such capabilities would vastly extend the effectiveness of any
war ship. Military budgets are characterized by their magnitude though,
and no doubt the TR 60 and its larger TR 100 sibling will be able to carry
sufficient lethal ordnance inside their payload limits.

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1/1/2018 $120,000 fuel cell tilt-rotor UAV designed for smart cities

There have been several tilt-rotor multicopter UAVs shown around the
world, but these (small) sUAVs do not have the endurance and payload to
be much more than toys until battery density and sensor miniaturization
matures by an order of magnitude.

Development of the Korean Aerospace Research Institute's VTOL UAVs has

been underway since 2002 and the latest TR 60 now offers six hours of
flight time, highlighting just how special the 16-kg (35-lb) UATC (pictured
above - 16 kg includes 6 kg payload) is in that it achieves a six-hour flight
duration with a fuel cell power system and no toxic emissions.

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1/1/2018 $120,000 fuel cell tilt-rotor UAV designed for smart cities

The particular breakthrough in aircraft design that has enabled the UATC
UAV (pictured above) to progress from concept to commercialization in less
than a year involves the development of small propellers below the nose
and tail of the aircraft (see image gallery for more detail), which stabilize
the craft during take-off, landing and transition between horizontal and
vertical flight.

Yinchuan-based UATC is offering the new tilt-rotor UAV with battery-electric

or hydrogen fuel cell propulsion systems. Both systems result in a 17-kg
(37.5-lb), 2.6-meter (8.5-ft) wingspan UAV capable of carrying a 6-kg (13-lb)
payload.

The sleek carbon-fiber tilt-rotor UAV on display at the conference was

shown in footage configured with video, night vision and infrared imaging
capabilities, though the craft is already being used to measure air quality
across Yinchuan using a variety of different sensors.

The environmental pollution measurements are gathered by eight different

on-board sensors and transmitted in real time, along with the GPS co-

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1/1/2018 $120,000 fuel cell tilt-rotor UAV designed for smart cities

ordinates of the aircraft, for what the Yinchuan Government is terming

"environmental forensics."

UATC staff reported that the integrated sensor payload is being rapidly
expanded, and can, or will soon be able to be used for collecting a wide
range of smart city data, including the automated recognition of illegal
license plates on cars on Yinchuan roads and human detection (using facial
recognition) and monitoring using advanced tracking techniques.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of UATC's UAS is that the company was
only established in November 2016, but with the technical cooperation and
financial support of the Yinchuan Government and telecommunications
giant ZTE, progress has been swift. Both organizations are fully committed
to the Yinchuan smart city initiative and the city is being used as a testbed
and blueprint for another 100 smart cities around China.

UATC is one of the first commercial spin-offs from the Yinchuan Smart City
initiative, in which the Northern Chinese city is being used as a model for
China's 100+ smart cities. UATC designed the VTOL tilt-rotor to meet
Yinchuan's traffic surveillance and air quality monitoring needs, and
further capabilities are under development that will enable the
RMB800,000 (US$120,000) aircraft to provide even more useful data.

New sensor capabilities are being developed in parallel for the UAV for
cities with particular needs, and applications on the development roadmap
are as diverse as gas detection, urban emergency monitoring and
management, and environmental protection. One of the apparent intended
uses for the UAV is facilitating a biodiversity survey.

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New Atlas attended the TM Forum Smart City InFocus 2017 courtesy of the
organizers.

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1/1/2018 $120,000 fuel cell tilt-rotor UAV designed for smart cities

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