Small drone series#

The Kolibri (German for 'Hummingbird') was larger than the other DARPA MAV prototypes, with a weight of about 300 grams. Lutronix Corporation 'Kolibri' micro-helicopter The Kolibri micro-helicopter built by Lutronix Corporation of Del Mar, California. A Georgia Tech Research Institute group built a rubber-band powered entomopter and also did research on a chemically powered Reciprocating Chemical Muscle propulsion system. Other research groups also worked on ornithopters. The birds clustered near the floundering ornithopter in what seemed to be a desire to help.

Researchers performing flight tests with the MicroBat said it tended to attract small birds when it ran low on power and fell to the ground. The Caltech / AeroVironment MicroBat ornithopter was test-flown for short distances under battery power. The group was only interested in studying the biomechanics of insects and was extremely surprised that somebody seemed interested in them. The ornithopter design concept followed experiments conducted in the mid-1990s by Charles Ellington, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge, and his colleagues, in which mechanical analogues of insect wings were tested in a wind tunnel.

CIT, AeroVironment and UCLA 'MicroBat' ornithopter The MicroBat ornithopter from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), working with AeroVironment and the University of California, Los Angeles. The MicroSTAR featured a five-gram navigation system that could be given directions by the ground station, but could also automatically keep on a heading or orbit a target. A later version had winglets instead of the single vertical tailplane, and a nose mounted propeller. An initial design had a fat teardrop body with stubby cropped-delta wings running along most of the body, along with a single vertical tailplane and a pusher propeller. The battery-operated MicroSTAR designs resembled kid's toys.

Small drone series#

Lockheed Sanders 'Microstar' The Lockheed Sanders MicroSTAR series of prototypes. A number of different MAVs were developed as part of these DARPA efforts: This phase-one DARPA study ended in 2001, and was followed by a phase-two study that focused on particular vendors with an intent to develop MAVs closer to operational specification. A downed pilot could use it to keep track of enemy search parties, or as airborne radio relays to search and rescue units. A MAV could be included in a pilot's survival kit.

MAVs capable of hovering and vertical flight would be used to scout out buildings for urban combat and counter terrorist operations. It would operate with a high degree of autonomy to be used in the squad-level combat environment. The MAV project's goals was to develop a microdrone whose largest dimension was no more than 15 centimeters (6 inches) would carry a day-night imager have an endurance of about two hours and be very low cost. In 1997, DARPA then began a multi-year, US$35 million development program to develop ' micro air vehicles (MAVs)'. The studies demonstrated that the concept was feasible. DARPA conducted a series of 'paper studies' and workshops on the concept in 19, leading to early engineering studies by the Lincoln Laboratories at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C. The RAND Corporation released a paper on the microdrone concept in 1994 that was widely circulated (Reference 12). The idea of using very small 'microdrones' was discussed, and after initial skepticism the idea started to gain momentum. One of the topics in the workshop was 'mobile microrobots'. In 1992, DARPA conducted a workshop titled 'Future Technology-Driven Revolutions In Military Operations'. The notion that small, even very small, UAVs might have practical uses arose in the early 1990s.

4.20 ShadowView 'Shadow Ranger' and 'Eco Ranger'.

4.17 NRL 'Dragon Eye', 'Swallow' and 'Finder'.

4.12 IAI Malat 'BirdEye's and 'Mosquito'.

4.6 Applied Aeronautics 'Albatross UAV'.

4.1 AeroVironment 'Pointer' and 'Raven'.

3.2 'Wing-store UAV' and Raytheon 'SilentEyes'.