Fixed-wing UAV launch from car top

Hello everyone!

For the past few months we were looking for a more convenient way to launch our PD-1 fixed-wing UAV (MTOW is 40 kg). Since runway takeoff and landing requires pretty serious and long training for the operator and any pneumatic launchers that will work with our UAV are expensive (from $30000 USD (actually we couldn't find anything less than $50k)) we decided to look for alternatives. Car top launch was one of those alternatives. We quickly developed a test unit and ran a few tests. So far we already have some statistics and pretty sure that it can be a good alternative to expensive pneumatic launchers in some civil applications with tight budget. Let me know your opinion on this. Do you think such way to launch a UAV could be an option?

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Comments

Adam Kroll January 22, 2017 at 2:48am

Thats a really good development. The release mechanism looks quite simple, could you elaborate on how it works? Are you using an ardupilot autopilot? Any problems so far with parachute landings?

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