Drone for Defense Applications Unveiled

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A new unmanned aircraft unveiled recently was designed to meet the needs of defense and public security players,and execute continuous aerial day and night surveillance missions over large areas. 

The French company Elistair unveiled the Orion 2, a tethered UAV enabling operators to carry out missions over long periods of time. The drone is thus “capable of carrying out surveillance missions of more than 24 hours in a row at a height of 90 meters and covering several tens of km2”, the company reports. The use of this system makes it possible to complement the observation missions carried out by other mini-UAVs, whose endurance is fairly limited in time, often around 20-30 minutes.

In order to meet the needs of armies and to be able to operate in complex environments, the new UAV has several system redundancies. “With its 100-meter micro-wire, the Orion 2 flies higher than its predecessor and monitors larger areas. Capable of carrying up to 2 kg of payload, it can integrate an additional telecommunications relay into its camera. It can also deploy 4G/5G communication nodes with a new fibre optic data link option” according to the company.

While its predecessor Orion UAV has proven its worth in large-scale surveillance missions, such as the Ryder Cup in Paris and the 14 July security operation in Bordeaux, the new system should also be a resounding success, as evaluated by aircosmosinternational.com. A first series of Orion 2 UAVs has already been delivered to defense customers and a second series is currently being produced, also for defense players, and should be delivered by the end of the year.