eBee TAC drone
AgEagle Aerial Systems Inc. a provider of full-stack drone, sensor and software solutions, announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, senseFly, has been named to the Blue sUAS 2.0 list, published by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) earlier this month.
The Blue sUAS 2.0 project follows the successful partnership between the U.S. Army and DIU on the Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) program for small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS), which started in 2019. DIU’s Blue sUAS project, now referred to as ‘1.0,’ followed the SRR program in August 2020 and made minor modifications to five final SRR candidate air vehicles and built integrated commercially-based ground control stations to create a standalone commercial/enterprise configuration available to the Department of Defense (DoD), as well as other U.S. government entities.
The 2.0 project was subsequently created to increase the diversity, capability and affordability of UAS on DIU’s “Blue UAS Cleared List,” bringing a greater variety of UAS with a wide range of modalities, capabilities and price points. A secondary part of the project involves: 1) an effort to define a common standard across the DoD for UAS vendor onboarding; 2) the means to communicate that standard; and 3) a uniform process to assist authorized vendors in the procurement process. In March 2021, DIU sought proposals from UAS vendors and in the brief period the Request for Prototype Proposals was listed on its website, www.sam.gov, DIU received more than 100 responses. From this group, senseFly, along with ten other companies, were selected to participate in the Blue sUAS 2.0 program to prototype a new approval process, significantly increasing the variety of UAS capabilities available to all branches of the U.S. military.
As part of the Blue sUAS 2.0 registration and qualification process, senseFly has completed two demonstrations for U.S. government officials of its highly ruggedized eBee TAC UAV, a hand-launched fixed wing tactical mapping drone solution that enables users in disconnected environments to execute complex mapping and scouting missions safely and efficiently. Weighing only 3.5 pounds, eBee TAC features a digital camouflage skin for increased stealth and can be rapidly deployed, from assembly to hand-launch, in three minutes by a single user.
In late July 2021, an initial technical demonstration took place at Fort Hunter Liggett, the U.S. Army Reserve’s largest training installation, where senseFly’s eBee TAC underwent testing and evaluation of its system configuration, flight test profile and safety of flight procedures, coupled with the repeatability and reliability of flights and data capture. In mid-September 2021, the Company conducted a second demonstration at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado consisting of various flight demos of the eBee TAC for the purpose of testing and evaluating the system’s capabilities in adverse and high altitude environments. senseFly expects to complete the registration process prior to the end of this year.
AgEagle CEO Brandon Torres-Declet stated,
“Since their creation more than 50 years ago, drones have continued to evolve, becoming one of the main tools integrated into military and defense forces throughout the world. Through senseFly’s innovative eBee TAC, AgEagle believes our Company can become an important player in the UAS domestic industrial base for the U.S. and its allies, helping to ensure delivery of secure drone mapping and scouting solutions that the DoD and other government entities will come to depend on.”
Source: Press Release