Though it’d at first look be mistaken for a $100 Popwing, the eBee has been a mainstay within the aerial surveying and mapping trade for practically a decade. The flying wing is famend for its ease of use: plan a mission in your laptop computer, take it out to the sector, shake it 3 times after which toss it into the air. A standard two-stick controller isn’t even choice with the eBee—however with a beginning value of $13,500, you’re in all probability higher off letting the pc do the flying, anyway.
With its in depth observe report of success in civilian operations, eBee’s developer senseFly—acquired by AgEagle from French drone maker Parrot in 2021—determined to create a brand new model tailor-made for a bunch of end-users with an much more pressing and compelling mission: the army.
To assist defend ahead deployed army personnel, the eBee TAC incorporates encrypted communications and different knowledge safety features to forestall it from freely giving pleasant positions, even whether it is captured by the enemy.
In fact, the tactical use of small UAS instantly conjures up photographs of a reside video feed, revealing the dangerous guys making an attempt to arrange an ambush on the other aspect of a hill from pleasant forces. Nevertheless, as a mapping platform, the eBee is ill-suited for that kind of real-time reconnaissance. I requested AgEagle’s regional supervisor for North America, Gary Licquia, to clarify conops for the eBee within the battlefield context.
“What we’re doing with eBee is chopping out a step within the course of for these guys which are proper there on the forefront,” stated Licquia. “Proper now, they need to name in for aerial reconnaissance they usually is perhaps fifteenth in line to get a bigger asset overhead. So, as an alternative of getting to cellphone the mothership and say, ‘Hey, I would like this knowledge,’ they’ve the drone with them to allow them to go forward and do it themselves.”
When the plane returns from a mission, the information may be rapidly downloaded and assembled right into a map utilizing widespread software program instruments corresponding to Pix4D React. And, the ensuing knowledge is unclassified, so it may be freely shared throughout completely different models working within the battlespace.
The eBee TAC was developed in session with army clients and incorporates many options that will be pointless, and even counterproductive, in a civilian platform.
“We’ve built-in some safety features: we’ve got 256-bit encrypted communications, suppressed flight logs and a safe SD card, in order that if something occurs to it, the dangerous guys aren’t going to have the ability to pull any helpful knowledge off the drone,” Licquia defined. “Additionally, we are able to fly with none radio communications in any respect. You’ll be able to add the mission to the drone beforehand, so it’s saved on board, and you then don’t have to speak with the drone whereas it’s performing its mission. You’ll be able to fly in full blackout mode, so it’s invisible by way of RF indicators.”
The plane additionally incorporates the flexibility so as to add bespoke payloads that could be required by sure army functions via an open payload design. Licquia added: “We give them the specs by way of the dimensions, the load, the middle of gravity to allow them to go forward and combine it into the drone themselves.”
The usual payload for the eBee TAC incorporates each a 20-megapixel seen mild digicam in addition to a 640×512 thermal imaging sensor, permitting very important intelligence to be gathered day or evening.
The eBee TAC is able to flying for as much as 90 minutes, giving it the flexibility to map practically two sq. miles at a decision of 1.5 centimeters per pixel. The eBee’s common black-and-yellow trim has been modified to a speckled black-and-white floor to camouflage the plane, which is undetectable visually and acoustically past 1,000 toes.
The inventory configuration contains an electro-optical/infrared payload incorporating a 20-megapixel seen mild digicam in addition to 640×512 thermal imaging sensor from FLIR. Commonplace various payloads embrace the S.O.D.A. 3D seen mild digicam that comes with an inner roll-axis gimbal to seize each nadir and indirect imagery to boost the standard of three-dimensional fashions constructed utilizing photogrammetry, in addition to a 24-megapixel seen mild digicam optimized for low-light efficiency.
Equally vital for the potential army consumer is the truth that the eBee TAC is authorised to be used in delicate functions. Certainly, the eBee is the primary fixed-wing platform to be acknowledged as a Blue UAS by the Protection Innovation Unit to be used by the USA Division of Protection.
BY PATRICK SHERMAN
