“First Sub-Tactical UAS” Sports RF Receiver Payload for Target Geolocation OTH

TEKEVER, a “global leader in unmanned systems technology”, and CRFS, a “pioneer in building ultra-sensitive RF receivers” have put their heads together to create a fixed-wing UAV in the form of the AR5, an airborne bloodhound to ferret out radio signals of terrestrial targets.

The alphabet soup of tactical and comms industry terms may be tough to parse for an outsider, but the gist of things is that the RFeye Node - a “lightweight and rugged RF receiver with a 11MHz IBW and a frequency range up to 40 GHz” - combines with the AR5, a tricycle-geared twin-engined fixed wing UAV. The combination of a lightweight RF module and a rugged little drone allows “unparalleled spectrum monitoring, detection, signal capture, and geolocation”. The corporate duo say that the AR5 allows teams to geolocate ground-based targets even beyond the horizon, a pretty powerful capability in a field of similarly-sized UAVs  that have to close in with the target for an accurate fix. That distance begets safety, which means more sorties with the same machines, keeping expensive equipment in the fight longer.

“To make this happen, our engineering teams have combined their ingenuity and agility to overcome the technical challenges that are inevitable when integrating high-performance electronics systems on an airframe,” said Pio Szyjanowicz, CRFS COO. “One of the most significant was that UAS have a significant number of transmitters onboard, that have the potential to interfere with the highly sensitive RFeye receiver payload. Achieving the optimal solution in terms of antenna position and RF filtering is just one example of the excellent teamwork between TEKEVER and CRFS.”

FMI: www.tekever.com