Katherine Ziesing | Canberra
Aerosonde, the Melbourne-based business of Textron Systems Unmanned Systems, has delivered a commercial variant of its Aerosonde Small Unmanned Aircraft System (SUAS) to the Taiwanese government as part of its typhoon research program (National Applied Research Laboratories/Taiwan Typhoon and Flood Research Institute).
The Aerosonde team delivered a complete system including three aircraft, command-and-control elements, and associated equipment, which is equipped with specialised sensors as part of a comprehensive research effort to model and predict typhoon activity surrounding the island nation.
Earlier variants of the Aerosonde system have been used extensively for meteorological research, including history-making hurricane flights off the US’ Atlantic coast and off western Pacific Ocean by National Taiwan University.
Designed for commercial applications based on lessons learned from the company’s decades in the SUAS industry, the Aerosonde team has optimised its commercial variant for maritime surveillance, payload range testing, and maritime and coastal environmental monitoring.
This delivered system offers a radio link that is capable of satellite communications, delivering beyond-line-of-sight operations for more than 18 hours of endurance. It has been demonstrated with a variety of application-specific payloads including electro-optic/infrared, high-definition survey, mapping and meteorology.
ADM also understands that the company has done significant work with various branches of US Special Forces but is unable to comment on the nature of these programs.
Aerosonde is the first Australian company to receive an Air Operator’s Certificate from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to fly in commercial airspace.