G107-V Is A Hybrid Between Fixed-Wing And Multi-Rotor Aircraft

German mapping company GerMap has introduced a new purpose-built drone for use in its business.

The G170-V is a vertical take-off and landing/VTOL fixed wing airplane UAV (unmanned airborne vehicle), perhaps better described as a QuadPlane.

Its 4 horizontal rotors give it quadcopter-like VTOL capabilities, and as a fixed wing airplane with 170 cm (67 inch) wingspan it operates like a regular fixed wing airplane.

The fuselage of G170-V houses a payload compartment which may carry up to 350 g (approx. 12 ounces) of payload. The maximum takeoff weight of this new, small QuadPlane amounts close to 4 kg (approx. 8 pounds).

G170-V covers large areas while remotely sensing data, e.g. within 20 min it covers an area of 25 ha in 100 m above ground level delivering with its 20 Mpix RGB-camera a stunning GSD of close to 4 cm. It accomplishes this with the convenience and easiness of its fully automatic vertical take-off and landing VTOL capabilities and combines thus flight coverage of fixed wing airplanes with handling simplicity of multicopters. Due to its 12 m/s (23 knots) cruise speed as airplane G170-V exploits time much more efficiently than a similar-powered multicopter.

Applications are in the domains of e.g. aerial mapping, corridor mapping, forestry, agriculture, security, environmental monitoring, construction, rapid disaster response, and many others more.

(Source: GerMap. Image courtesy GerMap)

FMI: www.germap.com/en