The American defense contractor AeroVironment has presented a new drone of great autonomywhich can stay in the air for up to five hours on a single charge, for reconnaissance missions, but can also launch guided bombs in attack missions. He P550 has been revealed in AUSA 2024the Annual Meeting and Exposition of the Association of the United States Army, held in Washington last week. AeroVironment hopes the drone will get a place in the US Army Long Range Reconnaissance (LRR) program.
The drone is capable of take off and land vertically (VTOL), transport up to 6.8 kilograms of pumps, cameras or sensors, and is designed to improve soldiers’ situational awareness on the battlefield at a significantly low cost.
The P550 is a large drone, with a wingspan of 5.2 meters and a length of 2.8. Its weight, without payload, is 24.9 kilograms. This unmanned aircraft system Group 2 autonomous eVTOL It can be piloted remotely or fly autonomously, depending on the needs on the battlefield. The drone provides an adaptive and autonomous system that Quickly adjusts to mission requirements in minutes and offers advanced situational awareness and enhanced protection to armed forces using it, including strike and target capabilities.
Modular Open System Design (MOSA) allows Integration with various third-party payload systems, data links and mission planning softwareaccording to AeroVironment. The company also claims that it can reconfigure in less than five minuteschanging charges and batteries without having to use specific tools.
The drone has a link range of 40kmwhich can extend up to 60 km with the DDL range of the GCS radio. It has a navigation system VNS Day/Night VIO with laser terrain matching and flexible frequency hopping radio options.
It is designed to be Easily transportable, something one person can do. Offers the option of quick assemblysince its quick connection structure without tools can be ready to fly in less than 10 minutes once out of the box.
The P550 uses AVACOREa software framework with computer vision SPOTR-Edge for onboard detection. The on-board detection function dramatically reduces the burden on the operator.
He has also participated in the development of the P550 Parry Labs. The company has created a base platform using open software, SWaP-C optimized hardware, and a digital engineering environment for collaborative build, test, and integration.
‘Our customers rely on AV market-leading UAS systems to carry out critical missions in challenging and hostile environments, offering a verified and validated MOSA architecture from a software and hardware perspective to eliminate supplier dependency‘, he pointed out Cris Saperavice president of engineering at AeroVironment. ‘By partnering with Parry Labs, our valued P550 customers can expect a truly open system architecture that will have predefined Core System Components with open interfaces Validated for quick, hassle-free replacement when needed‘.