The goal of the Shrike programme is to demonstrate the feasibility and practicality of man-packable perch-and-stare micro air vehicles to provide real-time persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to small unit commanders.
Shrike’s quadrotor design enables vertical takeoff, forward flight to an area of interest, vertical landing onto a perch site and high-resolution observation of determined points of interest over periods of several hours. Shrike then re-launches vertically from its perch and returns home. During perch-and-stare, Shrike transmits data and information to a ground station via a digital data link.
[DARPA awarded AeroVironment a $4.6 million contract in August 2008 to develop a small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) capable of performing “hover/perch and stare” missions. – Ed.]
Source: DARPA