Royal Navy continues trials of heavy-lift drones
The Royal Navy is trialling the use of heavy-lift drones for future use on warships.
NavyX and DARE (Discover, Analysis and Rapid Exploitation) teams have been working with UK drone firm Malloy Aeronautics and Planck Aerosystems in the development of the unmanned air vehicles for the purpose of moving supplies onto ships.
The heavy-lift drone has already been put through its paces in the harsh environment of the Arctic Circle in the Royal Navy’s Autonomous Advance Force exercise. In northern Norway earlier this year, it proved it could be operated safely in all conditions and could successfully deliver stores.
The latest round of trials were to prove the Malloy drone could land and launch on moving vessels, something it will be required to do if introduced into the navy.
But before taking it to sea, it was tested on land, tasking it with landing on a van’s trailer moving at different speeds and with the trailer swerving to reflect the range of conditions at sea.
The trials with Malloy and Planck are the next evolution to making unmanned systems increasingly autonomous.
The use of unmanned air vehicles in the logistics role offers a range of advantages from reduced costs, missions being completed quicker and the ship’s company not being exposed to certain risks.
“Being able to autonomously deploy 180kg payloads from a Royal Navy vessel at 20km stand-off would be an exciting capability to deliver,” says Jack Wakley, head of the engineering team from Malloy Aeronautics.
