Tactical Robotics Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Urban Aeronautics, is expanding the flight testing of its Cormorant unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and releasing new flight footage of the aircraft.
The footage (taken from two cameras on the ground and a third on-board camera mounted on the fuselage facing forward over the front duct) can be viewed here.
Throughout the summer, during ongoing, untethered flight testing, Tactical Robotics has been expanding the flight envelope of the Cormorant (formerly AirMule) prototype while testing modifications that enhance the flight control and multiple sensor suite.
The company is also increasing safety and reliability through implementation of full redundancy of all critical functions in the aircraft. As of September 2016 fully autonomous navigation as well as automatic takeoff and landing (ATOL) are standard on all flights.
Upcoming tests will include gradual and careful increase of airspeed (presently crossing 30 knots) as well as full pattern flights over adjacent fields and return to the airfield for landing.
Cormorant is a fully autonomous, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) UAV that is designed for both military and civil applications. Its primary military missions will be cargo delivery, casualty evacuation (CasEvac), maritime missions and large scale, humanitarian relief.
In the civil market, Cormorant will be able to fulfill a broad range of emergency response and commercial applications, eventually including parcel delivery. While other parcel delivery drones are designed to carry out ‘last mile’ delivery of individual, lightweight packages, Cormorant will be able to carry payloads of up to 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) over distances upwards of 50 kilometers (31 miles), enabling autonomous, consolidated freight delivery such as port to distribution center.
