First Flight of New Cargo UAV

First Flight of New Cargo UAV

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The first flight of a new cargo transport multicopter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is planned. Targeting both military and civilian third-party logistics applications, Bell is currently developing the technology, known as Autonomous Pod Transport (or APT), in two sizes: the APT 20 (which can carry up to 20-pound/nine-kilogram loads), and the APT 70 (which can transport loads weighing up to 70 pounds (32 kilograms).

The technology is designed to be scalable, with the aircraft utilizing the same simple design — a gimballed four-bladed rotor at each end of two biplane-style wings, with a cargo pod sitting on brackets between the two wings.

Underneath each rotor is a “vector thrust module” that contains all the high-powered electronics behind the propulsion system — batteries, speed controllers, the motor and servo. A fully-integrated avionics and sensor suite is embedded in the airframe.

Beyond these two models, Bell is looking at scaling the aircraft up to carry loads of up to 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms).

The aircraft are designed to be fully autonomous, taking off vertically before rotating 90 degrees on the pitch axis to transition to forward flight, then flying along waypoints on a predetermined route. It transitions back to vertical flight for its landing.