Tethered Unmanned Aircraft System (Te-UAS) is a growing segment of unmanned systems business. The ability of the tether to provide an indeterminant endurance and also provide much greater data rate and secure communications channel between the UAV and the ground station are demonstrating great utility

AVID’s “Watchman” ducted fan VTOL UAS offers the following superior characteristics over more traditional multi-rotor UAS, ensuring Persistent Operations and Increased Resiliency:         

  • Safety - All dynamic components in the Watchman UAS are enclosed within the Watchman duct.  There are no exposed dynamic components that could potentially harm operators, support equipment or onboard sensors.  In addition, Watchman can fly extremely close to items of interest without fear of damaging dynamic components or the target.

  • Watchman Air Vehicle Integration on Host Vehicles - Due to inherent duct performance efficiencies, Watchman offers a much smaller “footprint” than traditional multi-rotor VTOL UAS.  For example, in order to take 10lbs of sensor payload to 400ft, a traditional VTOL UAS requires 60-inch rotor span.  Watchman, sized to take 10lbs of payload, requires a duct that is only 20-inch diameter.  This ratio holds true as payload requirements increase.

  • Operations in High Winds - During winds, either while the host vehicle is underway or stopped, Watchman is designed to include stable aerodynamic lift from the duct. As opposed to traditional rotorcraft, the power required to fly does not increase with forward speed.  This results in a smaller vehicle to carry the same payload.

  • Acoustic Signature - While all VTOL UAS have an in-flight acoustic signature, Watchman’s acoustic signature is much less than traditional VTOL UAS.  At 400ft AGL, a Watchman sized to carry 10lbs aloft has an acoustic signature of 45 db, essentially conversation level acoustic signature.

  • “Family” of Watchman Vehicles - While maintaining common support elements (winch, power, collision avoidance, control, vehicle integration where possible), Watchman can be properly sized to meet mission and host vehicle requirements.  A “Family” of Watchman Air Vehicles can, if required, be built around a common, highly efficient, and reliable, ducted fan core.