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Bug drone for UK army that weights 196g, has 40 mins autonomy and 2km range

baesystems.com

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Re: Bug drone for UK army that weights 196g, has 40 mins autonomy and 2km range

#61

Post by azalemeth »

plouffy wrote: post #40
jleahy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because of the energy density (per mass) of Li-Ion batteries. You basically hit a wall at 20 minutes that's very hard to push past (it almost feels like a law of physics). But maybe they're using non-rechargeable batteries: zinc-air or lithium-iron-disulfide (ie. a 'lithium' AA battery) or something else? Trade offs are different for military.

Based on the info sheet "A quick change battery" would suggest they went for the non-rechargeable route.

The classic example of a good military-only battery would be those using molten salts as an electrolyte (typically at 150-500 ºC) [1]. Very high energy density (around 74 Ahr/kg [2] compared to LiPo's ~50 Ahr/kg [3]) and very high power density. Not finger friendly.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_battery [2] https://global-sei.com/technology/tr/bn76/pdf/76-06.pdf [3] https://blog.ampow.com/lipo-battery-size-chart/

Re: Bug drone for UK army that weights 196g, has 40 mins autonomy and 2km range

#62

Post by oceanplexian »

intricatedetail wrote: post #13
bencollier49 wrote: post #5

It feels like they're paying ludicrous money for these. Can someone in the know explain what differentiates these from shop-bought or scratch-built drones? As per this article below, the Nano 1A UAV Quadcopter Bug drone sells for £4,500 (a tenth of the price of another model, the Black Hornet Nano): https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/drone-nano-b... I appreciate that this is probably a variation on the o…

My guess it is built with military grade components which are more expensive and has got embedded emphasis on reliability. That probably includes custom molds that can be insanely expensive for small runs. I can imagine the firmware must conform to a higher standards than consumer grade firmware.

[x] Doubt

I've built dozens of multirotors and you can clearly see AMAXinno motors on the thing, (https://uavtek.co.uk/uav-fleet/bug) plus the big bulging 18650s. 99.9% chance it's using a COTS multirotor firmware or some variant of Ardupilot, and the camera looks like an old-school analog FPV camera. From the specs sounds like they have it running on the 5.8Ghz ISM band, so the thing will fall out of the sky the instant it encounter interference from some poorly configured consumer electronics.

Re: Bug drone for UK army that weights 196g, has 40 mins autonomy and 2km range

#63

Post by varjag »

vkou wrote: post #54
ceejayoz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harder to do at range. I'm glad I'm not the Secret Service. A drone swarm has to be rapidly becoming one of their scary scenarios for something like inaugurations.

A single medium-caliber mortar is a five-hundred-year-old piece of technology that can be carried and assembled by two men, has an effective range of ~1,000 to 5,000 yards, does not require line of sight to the target, can be operated by a high-school dropout, and has a kill radius of 30 meters . One can probably be picked up from an army surplus warehouse somewhere in the former Soviet Union/(some current conflict z…

Mortar is hard to aim (even with modern aids), in a terrain that you haven't ranged already.

Re: Bug drone for UK army that weights 196g, has 40 mins autonomy and 2km range

#64

Post by m1gu3l »

vkou wrote: post #54
ceejayoz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harder to do at range. I'm glad I'm not the Secret Service. A drone swarm has to be rapidly becoming one of their scary scenarios for something like inaugurations.

A single medium-caliber mortar is a five-hundred-year-old piece of technology that can be carried and assembled by two men, has an effective range of ~1,000 to 5,000 yards, does not require line of sight to the target, can be operated by a high-school dropout, and has a kill radius of 30 meters . One can probably be picked up from an army surplus warehouse somewhere in the former Soviet Union/(some current conflict z…

Thanks for joining me on whatever list we are now on :)

Re: Bug drone for UK army that weights 196g, has 40 mins autonomy and 2km range

#65

Post by Someone »

azalemeth wrote: post #61
plouffy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the info sheet "A quick change battery" would suggest they went for the non-rechargeable route.

The classic example of a good military-only battery would be those using molten salts as an electrolyte (typically at 150-500 ºC) [1]. Very high energy density (around 74 Ahr/kg [2] compared to LiPo's ~50 Ahr/kg [3]) and very high power density. Not finger friendly. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_battery [2] https://global-sei.com/technology/tr/bn76/pdf/76-06.pdf [3] https://blog.ampow.com/lipo-battery-…

If one could make such a battery small enough for this drone, I expect you would need all its power to keep the salt molten.

Re: Bug drone for UK army that weights 196g, has 40 mins autonomy and 2km range

#67

Post by Alupis »

varjag wrote: post #63
vkou wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single medium-caliber mortar is a five-hundred-year-old piece of technology that can be carried and assembled by two men, has an effective range of ~1,000 to 5,000 yards, does not require line of sight to the target, can be operated by a high-school dropout, and has a kill radius of 30 meters . One can probably be picked up from an army surplus warehouse somewhere in the former Soviet Union/(some current conflict z…

Mortar is hard to aim (even with modern aids), in a terrain that you haven't ranged already.

With a cell phone and Google Maps, you can get distance, elevation, obstacles, and more with good-enough precision.

Or, even use our own mission planning software against us - ATAK[1][2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Team_Awareness_Kit

[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atakmap.ap...

Re: Bug drone for UK army that weights 196g, has 40 mins autonomy and 2km range

#68

Post by ogre_codes »

bencollier49 wrote: post #5

It feels like they're paying ludicrous money for these. Can someone in the know explain what differentiates these from shop-bought or scratch-built drones? As per this article below, the Nano 1A UAV Quadcopter Bug drone sells for £4,500 (a tenth of the price of another model, the Black Hornet Nano): https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/drone-nano-b... I appreciate that this is probably a variation on the o…

Shop bought drones don't have arbitrary, often nonsense requirements. This one advertises that it'll work in 50MPH winds. How common are soldiers dealing with combat in 50MPH winds? It's likely there are other, similarly arbitrary and nonsensical demands that were placed on these.

Re: Bug drone for UK army that weights 196g, has 40 mins autonomy and 2km range

#69

Post by Tepix »

extropy wrote: post #56
bowmessage wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't a lot of the DJI models have a ~30 minute flight time? Point taken though, that there's a wall we hit with current battery tech.

The DJI drones that can do that are significantly larger. A 250 gram DJI mavic mini can do 30 minutes and with significantly larger propellers. The efficiency goes down with smaller blade sizes (more losses to vortexes) so from the photo 20 min is the max to expect with regular lipo batteries.

The Mini 2 manages 31 minutes at 249g and it features a 3 axis gimbal for the camera. This military drone doesn't appear to have any gimbal.
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