Ukraine conflict: AeroVironment to donate UASs to Ukraine

The Quantix Recon is a vertical take-off and landing unmanned aircraft that can provide Ukrainian forces with real-time actionable intelligence. (AeroVironment)

AeroVironment is to donate unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) to the armed forces of Ukraine, the company announced on 19 April.

The US-based manufacturer said that it will deliver 50 of 100 of its Quantix Recon manportable vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UASs immediately, with the remainder to follow.

“As the Ukraine military's fight to protect their homeland and defend their nation's freedom against Russia's invasion intensifies, their need for solutions that can offer force protection and force multiplication capabilities continues,” said Wahid Nawabi, AeroVironment president and chief executive officer. “This donation will provide operators with a tool that can fly undetected by enemy forces and unaffected by radio frequency jammers to deliver accurate and rapid reconnaissance of remote, inaccessible areas of the dynamically changing battlefield.”

As Nawabi noted, the Quantix Recon will provide Ukrainian forces with real-time, actionable intelligence on which they can plan and conduct missions.

According to Janes All the World's Aircraft: Unmanned, AeroVironment's Quantix Recon UAS is designed to capture aerial imagery data autonomously. The UAS is intended for military applications and is an evolution of the commercially available Quantix Mapper. The system captures aerial high-resolution imagery of either a grid, or a linear zone, at an altitude between 150 and 800 ft. As the nature of the flight is programmed beforehand, the UAS does not require a datalink to the user during the flight to operate, reducing its vulnerability to radio detection or jamming. The VTOL system takes off and lands as a multirotor UAS, transitioning mid-flight into a fixed-wing mode after take-off.