As the CyberQuad is a ducted quadrotor, it has the best of both platforms, with the mechanical simplicity, stability and agility of a quadrotor, combined with the safety, compactness and efficiency of ducted fans.
One young Australian is leading the way in the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) race and was on hand at the recent Defence+Industry Conference in Adelaide to show off his latest project.
“The CyberQuad is a particularly special UAV because it amalgamates state-of-the-art vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAV technologies in a unique way that has not yet been done before,” says Joshua Portlock, Flight Control Systems Engineer at Cyber Technology (located 20 minutes south of Perth, Western Australia). Mr Portlock says that the open propeller quadrotor helicopters have emerged over the last decade as inertial sensor technology has allowed their passively unstable dynamics to be actively stabilised. “This allows high levels of stability and agility to be achieved, while benefiting from the mechanical simplicity and low noise of using just 4 direct drive electric fans,” he said.
The challenge has been the current open propeller quadrotor helicopters typically cannot fly through doorways or near people due to their large exposed rotors and the smaller variants are not able to achieve adequate payload or endurance performance. “Ducted fan UAVs on the other hand are more compact for the same payload or endurance capability and their fans are safely enclosed,” says Mr Portlock.
As the CyberQuad is a ducted quadrotor, it has the best of both platforms, with the mechanical simplicity, stability and agility of a quadrotor, combined with the safety, compactness and efficiency of ducted fans. This allows the CyberQuad to operate in a unique emerging market space of urban aerial reconnaissance, currently unsatisfied by existing UAV platforms. “Open helicopters either cannot fit through doorways or run the risk of a rotor strike that would cause an accident. Existing ducted fan UAVs are too noisy and are typically aerodynamically unstable near walls, making them impractical for close range reconnaissance,” said Mr Portlock.
The company’s experience has proven that just one type of UAV can not satisfy all markets. The company’s solution was to build a broad portfolio of UAVs to cater for various applications. For example, they have developed the CyberEye fixed-wing platforms to satisfy long endurance applications, the CyberShark Helicopters for outdoor VTOL applications, the CyBird Jets for high speed applications and the CyberQuad platforms for urban VTOL applications.
Cyber Technology was founded in early 2006 and is an Australian small-medium enterprise that specialises in providing UAV solutions for real world applications. Due to their relatively small size and highly specialised team of dedicated employees, they can respond quickly to new customer demands and stay ahead of the UAV technology curve, while still offering highly competitive capability value.
“It is still early days for the CyberQuad in Defence, although Cyber Technology generated a lot of interest from exhibiting at the Defence + Industry Conference in Adelaide last month. We are aiming to provide CyberQuad solutions to Australian customers in the near future, ideally before addressing the international interest we are receiving,” says Mr Portlock. “The Royal Thai Air Force has purchased several CyberEye 2 long endurance platforms which currently carry gyro stabilised 26x optical zoom daylight camera payloads”.
For more information on CyberQuad UAVs, please contact Mr Portlock at joshua.portlock@cybertechuav.com.au or phone (08) 9418 9206.
For more information on Cyber Technology and their UAV solutions, email info@cybertechuav.com.au or visit www.cybertechuav.com.au
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