Frag Out! Magazine

flyeye FlyEye is probably the best known UAV from Flytronic, currently in service with Polish Armed Forces. It is surveillance system based on mini-UAV de- signed to conduct short-range reconnaissance missions, within 10 to 30 kilometers distance (maximum range is even up to 50 kilometers. FlyEye is compact size (3,6-meter wingspan and 12 kilograms of weight), hand-launched in almost every kind of environment including highly urbanized areas and very confined spa- ces. The launcher or airstrip is not required due the engine with thrust rated almost equal to the weight of UAV. It should be noted that most of the flight time, FlyEye performs as a glide. After completing the mission, UAV will land in the pre-programmed location, but before landing a container holding the batteries and the surveil- lance payload is automatically ejected and land on a parachute. It is required because FlyEye does not have landing gear and it lands on the rein- forced airframe. The accuracy of landing remains within 10 metres and UAV will land close to the dropped payload. The container is fitted with payload equipped with two stabilized high resolution daylight and IR cameras. It is placed belowe the fuselage as such location provides largest field of view, not restricted by wings or fuselage itself. The FlyEye mini-UAV is controlled from handheld remote control stations and might be programmed to fly in multiple modes: flight along a pre-defined ro- ute, flight to a destination point of given coordi- nates, holding over a selected object,, flight in the direction indicated by the surveillance payload, manual flight control from an operator's station, automatic lock of a selected object in a frame, au- tomatic escorting, determination of coordinates of observed objects and relay of the coordinates to BMS, autonomous flight along pre-defined route even out of radio range, in case of com- munication loss - automatic retracting to the po- sition of last radio contact or automatic landing in a pre - defined point. There is also possibility of modification of mission parameters in-flight, And possibility of recording of the video image and information during the flight on a computer hard drive including telemetric data (flight altitude, data transmission speed, time and coordinates of current image). PARAMETERS: www.fragoutmag.com

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