Insitu revealed its 1.6 kilo (3.5 lb) Inceptor VTOL UAS at the Airborne Law Enforcement Association 2011 Convention in New Orleans. The miniature helicopter has an endurance of 30 minutes and features the option to fit plug and play payloads including daylight and IR cameras in the nose.
The whole system has been designed to fit in the boot or trunk of a police patrol car and flown from a handheld touch-screen device which allows the operator to point to the location they need the UAS to be able to see. Development of the Inceptor has been ongoing for just over two years through Insitu’s work with Adaptive Flight Inc who developed the Inceptor’s flight control system. The Inceptor bears more than a passing ressemblance to the Hornet.
‘The Inceptor is fully automated, we could train police officers to fly in just a couple of hours,’ says Donald Shinnamon, a business development executive at Insitu and a retired police officer. ‘We see a wide range of roles, a regular incident is where officers are called to look for elderly people who have gone missing from their care home, they usually haven’t gone far, but systems like this could really help find people much more quickly.’
Production models of the Inceptor will feature a carbon fibre body, which Insitu say will be robust enough to withstand regular operation. Furthermore if extra flying is required, new fresh batteries can be clipped on in moment allowing the Inceptor to get back in the air as soon as possible.
‘We don’t see this as a system for gathering evidence but a way for police officers to see what is going behind a wall or a hedgerow and assess a situation before they go into harm’s way,’ said Paul McDuffee, one of the business development executives from Insitu. ‘We envisage not just a role in police work but parapublic agencies as well,’ added Shinnamon.
Key features:
- Fits into a single backpack or military-grade case.
- Launches from all terrain to make high-risk operations safe and effective
- Navigates like a video game or with simple waypoint entries.
- Manoeuvres both aggressively and with stability.
- Correlates position easily on a moving map-visual data overlays show flight position on real-time video.
- Displays events as if you are there-precise camera pointing lets you look where you want to look and the video interface shows Inceptor’s position and status as if you are onboard.
- Lets you view video in real-time or store high-resolution imagery onboard for download at touchdown
The Inceptor is priced at around the same cost as a typical police patrol car – $50,000.
Source: Press Release/Web Site