The German Army recently announced that a team of instructors has been deployed to Afghanistan to instruct German soldiers in the operation of a new, small tactical reconnaissance UAS. The Mikado AR 100 B, built by German manufacturer AirRobot GmbH & Co. KG, is intended to provide additional situational awareness to troops in northern Afghanistan.
The vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) system is powered by four rotors and equipped with a video sensor which transmits collected data in near real-time. The images are processed by a ground station and can be stored for detailed analysis at a later time. With a maximum payload of approximately 200g, the system can be equipped with different cameras, including daylight, twilight or infra-red cameras, and supports troops in an effective radius of 1,000 metres during a maximum flight period of 20 minutes.
“Finally, we have something that enables us to look behind obstacles without having to expose our own forces to direct threats,” a soldier explained after a training course on the new system. The portable Mikado UAS, with a span of only 1 metre, will help troops on patrol to detect and identify suspected persons, weapon systems and vehicles from a safe position, providing the soldiers with an improved situational awareness and reducing the risk of undesired surprises before they approach an area.
The instructor team is training 48 soldiers in six training courses to operate their new asset. The first course for the “Army’s small eye” involved some 495 training flights with a duration of 10 to 20 minutes each. According to the Army, the system is easy to handle and can be quickly deployed with troops. Its four rotors allow for a stable and easy-to-control flight and enables the system to hover nearly silently over a target, providing video footage from any desired angle. The only limitation is winds stronger than 8 m/s, making a stable flight difficult to impossible.
AirRobot provides the German Army with six of these small VTOL systems, as well as with two rechargeable batteries and a battery charger. Providing power to the system’s four rotors and the video camera, the batteries allow for an operational range of 500 metres with analogue video operation and 1,000 metres with a digital video operation. In case of a technical failure or low battery power, Mikado automatically returns to the ground station or a pre-determined point and autonomously carries out an emergency landing.
The German company, which has offices in Germany and the USA, originally designed the Mikado AR100-B for civilian purposes, but expanded the system’s operational scenarios to defence and security purposes, including military, police and rescue missions.
Source: Defence Professionals