Page 18 - World Airnews Magazine October Edition 2020

NEWS

SPECIALISED SOLUTIONS

orn out of a passion for aerospace
Band to use it for solving everyday
problems in the commer-cial and humani-
tarian fields, a newly formed South African

company is currently developing a new
range of VTOL UAVs.
These unique unmanned aerial vehicles
can be used for a variety of missions includ-
ing survey-ing, monitoring and last mile
delivery of medical supplies – all tailored to

specific needs.

The company’s design philosophy is Broughton and Kreelan Padaychee are ware-in-the-loop simulation (HILS) for 3rd

driven by the extensive use of high-fidelity both aeronautical engineers with more party airframes. HILS is used by unmanned

modelling and simulation, system identifi- than 30 years combined experience in the aircraft and other airborne system devel-

cation and multidisciplinary optimisation. aerospace and defence industry. This in- opers to reduce the risk of losing airframes

“This approach allows for complex cludes years as researchers at the CSIR and early in their flight test programmes. This

control system development, accurate later at a private company that specialised simulation-linked technology is used to test

performance model-ling and thorough in the flight testing of military air-craft. actual onboard systems and associated

offline testing of smart system behaviour They are joined by Elena Broughton, a software on the ground while the aircraft

(driven by AI principles) prior to first business professional and economist with is put through virtual flight profiles and

flight, which significantly reduces the risks more than 15 years’ experience in the field. made to "believe" that it is in actual flight.

involved during flight testing,” said Bennie In addition to their vast experience, they all It allows early de-tection of problems,

Brough-ton, one of the three founders of hold ad-vanced degrees in their respective improvement and optimisation of the flight

the company. areas of specialisation. control laws, general evaluation of perfor-

Their design workflow allows for ex- Besides their own UAVs currently under mance and the testing of system failures

ploring a less conservative design space, development, they also support other prior to flight,” said Broughton.

giving the compa-ny confidence to push the developers of both UAVs and manned The company’s focus is in the health, ag-

boundaries of current aerospace technol- aircraft through a number of specialised ricultural, built environment, security and

ogies. Their target market includes UAV aeronautical engineering ser-vices. These humanitarian domains.
operators and service providers who are services are naturally linked to their own The company can be contacted on

looking for performance gains over more design workflow. www.aviorlabs.com/ or an email sent to

traditional multicopter configurations. “One example is the provision of hard- queries@aviorlabs.com. Q

DRONES
DUAL-PURPOSE DRONES
FOR AGRICULTURE

agriculture and the team was on-hand pany’s independent contractors can fly

with their machines to demonstrate both up to three drones in a field.
he Rantizo drone used for aerial spraying and aerial seeding. “We are usually going into hard to reach,

Tspraying has a 14’ (35cm) boom Michael Ott, CEO of Rantizo, explained problematic situations where we are likely

with a 20’ (50cm) swath which can equal the drone used for spraying has a 14’ treating part of a field. And often, we may

14 acres or (5.6 hectares) per hour of (35cm) boom with a 20’ (50cm) swath not know until that morning exactly how

application at a three-gallon (13.5 litres) which can equal 14 acres or 5.6 hectares much of the field we are treating,” Ott said.

per acre (hectare) rate. per hour of application at a three gallon He noted that the company has a
At the 2020 Farm Journal Field Days or (13.5 litres) per acre/hectare rate. handful of partnerships with imagery

in-person event in Jessup, Iowa, in the The drones can alternatively be out- companies to precisely map pests in the

United States attendees got a close look fitted with a granular spreader for cover field for accurate application.

at the latest technology in drones used crop seeding. And depending on seeding “What we can do is spray insecticide
for agricultural applications. rate, those drone setups can cover four right where it’s needed and herbicide

Start-up company Rantizo is the first acres (1.6 hectares) per hour or up to 12 right where it’s needed,” Ott explained.

and only company to gain legal approv- acres or 4.8 hectares per hour. “That means we can treat pests more

al for swam applications of drones in With its swarming approval, the com- effectively and at a lower overall cost.” Q

World Airnews | October 2020
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