UMS Skeldar announced at the International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX 2021) being held in Abu Dhabi from 21 to 25 February that its V-200 vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is now capable of performing fully automatic take-off and landing (ATOL) manoeuvres from naval vessels.
David Willems, vice-president of Business Development and Strategy at UMS Skeldar, told Janes on 17 January that existing ship-based VTOL UAVs do not possess full ATOL capability and typically require direct human intervention with an operator manually controlling the air vehicle during take-off and landing sequences. In contrast, the naval ATOL capability integrated into the V-200 is designed to fully automate deck landings with combined laser altimeter and GPS inputs that track the air vehicle’s location and calculate the required altitude reduction.
UMS Skeldar has incorporated fully ATOL capabilities in the naval domain into its V-200 VTOL UAV. (UMS Skeldar)
“What is really happening instead is actually ‘assisted’ take-off whereby a human in the loop either controlling the platform with a remote control or computer,” said Willems. “But it is not actually automated.
“The same applies for landing with the platform being manually controlled for the last few metres of its descent after it reaches a tethered position above the deck,” he added, noting that UMS Skeldar is the first VTOL UAV manufacturer to have met compliance for such a capability for naval operations, which is currently being tested by its NATO customers.
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