A South African Company Has Developed a New Drone

A South African Company Has Developed a New Drone

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Paramount Advanced Technologies is developing a Persistent Surveillance Tethered Drone for missions such as border control and anti-poaching. They’re displaying the aircraft at the Africa Aerospace and Defence exhibition.
The  tethered quadcopter UAV can hover at a height of around 100 metres and because it is powered by a cable from the ground, has an unlimited operational time.

Typical applications for the tethered UAV include also gas, pollution and chemical detection and building and crowd surveillance.
Several payload options are being considered, such as optronics and communications, optronics payloads include a camera and thermal imager.
Paramount told defenceWeb.co.za that a prototype has already flown some demonstration flights and the company hopes to have a finalised prototype by the end of the year.
Also at the AAD exhibition, PAT is showchasing a simulated integrated command centre with leading South African defence industrial partners. It also has other UAVs on display.
PAT specialises in mission systems for land, air, sea and joint warfare platforms and offers communications and weapons systems, sighting and helmet sighting systems, systems integration and unmanned aerial vehicles, amongst others. The company has supplied avionics for the South African Air Force’s Hawk jet trainers, upgraded Mi-24 helicopters and fitted weapons and sensors on Mi-24 and EC635 helicopters. It offers its FLASH weapon and sensor suite for helicopters – this includes 12.7 and 20 mm machinegun/cannon pods, guided or unguided rockets and missiles.