Portuguese companies are displaying small and lightweight unmanned aircraft systems at the Paris Air Show 2011

21.06.2011 By VMSB – DEFESA Global

At the Paris Air Show 2011 event being held near Paris, France, two Portuguese companies are displaying small and lightweight unmanned aircraft systems.

Tekever ASDS Lda presents the AR4 Light Ray. The system is designed to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to ground military units when in operations. The man-portable fixed wing unmanned aircraft system provides real time day and night imagery. It can perform surveillance, reconnaissance, target acquisition, communications tasks. The system could be as well used as a communications relay node. A ground based mobile ruggedized command and control terminal is used to operate the unmanned system.

AR4 Light Ray has a wingspan of 1, 80 meters, a length of 1,40 meters, a range of up to 20 km, a top speed of 55 km/h, a payload of 5 kg and an autonomy of 2 hours or 3 hours with extra powerpack.

UAVision-Engenharia de Sistemas Lda has displayed the U4-400 and the U6-200 small rotary unmanned aircraft systems.

The U4-400 platform can be used in several applications such as control of pests and diseases in agricultural crops, prevention and monitoring of forest fires, inspections of bridges and power lines, support search operation in case of disasters and as well as urban day/night surveillance.

A single U4-400 has been delivered to the Angolan police and additional units could be ordered.

The U6-200 development is to be completed in six months. This system will be mainly operated in the broadcasting industry.