A new Chinese drone, the TJ-FlyingFish, is gaining attention as it looks like something straight out of a Hollywood movie. It is a transformer robot capable of autonomously navigating underwater as an uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) and flying in the air as a quadcopter. The drone was developed by a team of scientists from China’s Shanghai Research Institute for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Tongji University, and the Unmanned Systems Research Group at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It weighs 3.6 pounds, can hover in the air for 6 minutes and travel underwater at 6.5 feet per second. Some missions for the technology could include taking aerial and aquatic surveys, remote sensing, and search-and-rescue operations. The technology was developed by China’s Shanghai Research Institute for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Tongji University, and the Unmanned Systems Research Group at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Professor Ben Chen from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and his colleagues will be presenting a paper on their research on the drone at the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in London this May. Watch a video at the link. Story and photos courtesy of Kurt Knutsson, CyberGuy Report, Fox News.

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BAE Systems, Australia, has unveiled a fascinating new autonomous, hybrid, VTOL UAV for military use. The STRIX, developed in Australia, folds to fit inside a shipping container, and is capable of carrying 160 kg (353 lb) of payload over 800 km (500 miles). The STRIX was unveiled at Australia’s recent Avalon Air Show, in front of air force chiefs from around the world – with the notable exceptions, according to ABC News, of Russian and Chinese delegates, who had been excluded from the conference.

BAE Systems has developed the aircraft in conjunction with Perth-based Innovaero. It describes the Strix as a “hybrid, tandem-wing, multi-domain and multi-role UAS,” capable of performing missions including air-to-ground strike, persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or potentially serving as a “loyal wingman” – style force multiplier to accompany military helicopters. Watch a video animation of Strix here.

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FulcrumAir has created a unique drone design that diverts birds from powerlines, protecting both energy infrastructure and Avian wildlife. The company has announced the installation of more than 1,500 Power Line Sentry Hawk Eye Bird Flight Diverters (BFDs) under a pilot program for Atlantic City Electric, which serves about 560,000 customers across southern New Jersey. The work was done by FulcrumAir, working in collaboration with MJ Electric, in South Jersey on five transmission lines in high-risk bird collision areas. BFDs are installed on overhead wires where there is a risk of avian mortality and power outages due to bird strikes.

What should the design of a bird diverter include? FulcrumAir’s BFD specifications:
-Bird flight diverter for 1.10″ – 1.60″ (27.9mm – 40.6mm) diameter conductor
-Large surface area of reflective material
-Fluorescent prismatic yellow bands are mirrored to effectively reflect light
-24-hour glow-in-the-dark white band
-A-frame shape for maximum visibility from all angles
-Durable rubber hose cradles the conductor without pinching, grinding, or causing damage
-No mechanical components to potentially fail
-Low wind and ice load, data available upon request
-Concentrated load data for PLS-CADD, available upon request
-Rated for systems up to 345 kV

By adopting the innovative drone-based installation technology developed by FulcrumAir, energy companies can implement Avian Protection Programs in a new way. Road closures are no longer required to accommodate bucket trucks, helicopters are no longer required, and power outages no longer need to be taken. For more details on FulcrumAir’s bird diversion solutions, visit its website here.

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Hydrogen fuel cells are steadily catching on in ground-based transportation, but could they soon be a fixture of our airspace? That appears to be the goal for Virginia Beach-based drone delivery firm DroneUp. The Walmart partner, which powers the retailer’s largest-in-the-nation commercial drone delivery network, recently announced its plans to test hydrogen fuel cell technology from Doosan Mobility Innovation (DMI), one of the first firms to commercialize hydrogen-powered drones. The DMI and DroneUp agreement was first initiated in October 2022.

DMI’s hydrogen fuel cell technology yields 3-to-1 energy density characteristics when compared to lithium battery-powered drones. This new technology greatly increases drone flight time to 2-5 hours, depending on several factors like payload weight and weather. In addition to the increased flight time, the new hydrogen technology being tested also has environmental sustainability benefits.

“The technology industry evolves incredibly quickly and the drone industry evolves even faster,” said John Vernon, CTO of DroneUp. “It is absolutely critical we explore new technology like this and continue testing and validating how it can help us move forward. This collaboration is really interesting because it addresses two major aspects of commercial drone services, increasing flight time and reducing carbon emissions. We’re really excited to see the results from this as it could be a significant game-changer for the industry.” Watch a video of a hydrogen cartridge being loaded into a drone here.

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Defensenews.com reported that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has taken a major step forward toward creating an experimental airplane that can be maneuvered without traditional ailerons or other mechanical devices, instead using short bursts of air. DARPA has tapped Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing subsidiary, to start detailed design of an experimental aircraft that uses air bursts to maneuver.

DARPA selected Aurora Flight Sciences to start detailed design of an aircraft that uses a technology called active flow control to direct it, as part of the Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors, or CRANE, program. Aurora is a subsidiary of Boeing headquartered in Manassas, Virginia, that specializes in developing advanced innovative designs for aircraft and uncrewed systems.

“Over the past several decades, the active flow control community has made significant advancements that enable the integration of active flow control technologies into advanced aircraft,” CRANE program manager Richard Wlezien said in a statement. “We are confident about completing the design and flight test of a demonstration aircraft with AFC as the primary design consideration. With a modular wing section and modular AFC effectors, the CRANE X-plane has the potential to live on as a national test asset long after the CRANE program has concluded.” DARPA hopes the active flow control concept, if successful, could prompt a major rethinking of how planes are built and maneuver.

Active flow control technology would use small bursts of air from a wing or other air foil surface to shift the aircraft’s position or direction. The burst itself is not pushing the wings under this concept, he said, the way a spacecraft uses thrusters to nudge it into position in orbit or during re-entry. Instead, an active flow control burst creates something of a speedbump that alters the way air flows over the wings, which then causes the aircraft to shift.

“It’s very energy-efficient,” Walan said. “Because I’m using the natural way the air wants to move, I’m injecting just a little bit of energy into it to get a big effect out of it. We’re not actually pushing the vehicle with air, we’re using it to tailor how the air is flowing over the wing.”

The aerospace community has considered this concept for at least three decades, he said, and tried laboratory experiments and some small-scale flight demonstrations. In 2015, NASA and Boeing teamed up to successfully fly a 757 aircraft modified with a vertical tail that used active flow control technology for increased aerodynamic efficiency. So far, Walan said, no one has tried to control an entire airplane using this technology. If DARPA decides to move forward into the next phase, Aurora would build a full scale demonstrator with a 30-foot wingspan, and would aim to conduct flight tests in 2025.

In recent years, he said, DARPA felt the technology — including supercomputers and advanced fluid dynamics tools, and drone aircraft that could make demonstrating active flow control much cheaper and safer than testing it on manned planes — had developed to a point where “the time was right to try to see if we could design an airplane around this.”

DARPA also had to show this technology isn’t just something that “sounds cool,” he said, but could yield tangible benefits over the traditional system.

In its Tuesday statement, DARPA said this technology could improve how aircraft fly in several ways, including by eliminating moving surfaces to control the plane, reducing drag, thicker wings for structural efficiency and increased fuel capacity, and simplified systems to improve an aircraft’s lift. Walan said in 2021 that it could also lead to lower costs and increased aircraft agility. Aurora has now completed the project’s Phase 1, a preliminary design phase that yielded what DARPA described as “an innovative testbed aircraft” that successfully used active flow control in a wind tunnel test.

Aurora will now move into Phase 2 under the $42 million contract, where it will create a detailed engineering design for its plane and develop flight software and controls. This will end with a critical design review of an “X-plane” demonstrator that will fly without traditional flight control surfaces on its wings or tail. If the concept does work, Walan said, it could be a “disruptive” technology — and even upend how future aircraft are designed. Watch a video here. See Defensenews.com for details.

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H3 Dynamics and Hylium Industries have joined forces to boost the performance of zero emission hydrogen-electric flight for a cross-Atlantic demonstration drone flight. Hylium and H3 Dynamics technologies are currently being integrated to attempt a 3,300km crossing of the South Atlantic, in a program led by ISAE SUPAERO Toulouse, one of the world’s leading aerospace engineering schools. The companies are combining the strengths of Hylium’s liquid hydrogen storage and liquification solutions, and H3 Dynamics’ distributed hydrogen-electric propulsion nacelles, ultra-light fuel cells, and new hydrogen drone refueling stations. H3 Dynamics’ team developed a special fuselage design that can store a small LH2 tank and manage the thermal behavior of all the propulsion sub-systems.

Moving to liquid hydrogen represents a significant capability leap for small electric-powered unmanned systems. Cryogenic (liquid) hydrogen stores 3 times more energy as compressed gas in the same volume. The 25kg hydrogen-electric propulsion UAV demonstrated by H3 Dynamics last July in France will be able to fly over 900km with a single fill. This will potentially vastly expand the scale of delivery drone, mapping and ISR missions. With pressurized hydrogen, that range reduces to 400km, which is still 3 times more than a battery-powered equivalent. “When combined, our global best-in-class solutions achieve the global performance limit for low-altitude electric powered flight” said Taras Wankewycz, H3 Dynamics CEO. “We are proud to be working with Hylium to move hydrogen-electric flight propulsion to the next level.”

H3 Dynamics hydrogen-powered UAVs including airships, multi-rotors, and VTOLs will be able to further boost flight durations by a factor of 3 over pressurized hydrogen systems, or a factor of 10 compared to batteries. H3 Dynamics also recently announced an automated hydrogen refueling mobile station for hydrogen UAV operations. The H2FIELD mobile station produces hydrogen from water and delivers compressed hydrogen gas tanks to the operator with little human intervention and no required hydrogen expertise. H3 Dynamics and Hylium’s partnership will upgrade the station so that it can fill liquid hydrogen tanks. Captions:

-1. Liquid hydrogen multi-rotor drone working towards a 10-hour flight capability. (Photo: Business Wire)
-2. Joint development for transatlantic crossing with ISAE-SUPAERO Toulouse, H3 Dynamics – using HYLIUM Liquid hydrogen storage (Photo: Business Wire)
-3. H3 Dynamics Liquid hydrogen nacelles with Hylium Liquid hydrogen tank (Photo: Business Wire)
-4. H3 Dynamics on-demand hydrogen production, storage and filling trailer system named “H2FIELD” now adding liquid hydrogen on-demand as its next step. (Photo: Business Wire)

Watch a video on Hylium hydrogen-based drone flight here. For more details on Hylium’s liquid hydrogen storage and liquification solutions, visit its website here. To learn more about H3 Dynamics’ distributed hydrogen-electric propulsion nacelles, ultra-light fuel cells, and new hydrogen drone refueling stations and its technology, visit its website here. Read a summary of the project at Businesswire.com.

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