Shape of things to comeDARPA awards Lockheed nano-copter contract

Small is beautiful. DARPA has awarded — perhaps “re-awarded” is better; see below — Lockheed Martin a $546,076 contract to develop a tiny one-bladed robot helicopter slightly bigger than a coin. The system is called “Katana” and it is intended for “indoor military missions.” The contracts says that the contract was given “to perform the Katana: Mono-Wing Rotorcraft for Tactical Applications effort.”

History: The Samarai
Lockheed had already done some development work on a tiny, single-rotor aircraft modeled on what botanists call “samara” — whirling winged seeds found in nature. That effort was dubbed Samarai, as a portmanteau of samara and samurai. The device was supposed to weigh just eight grams, and intended to have a mission life of over twenty minutes and a range of a kilometer.The revolutionary design was modeled on a sycamore or maple seed, with a single wing rotating at high speed. The vehicle was to be driven by a jet thruster, and there were practically no moving parts. The body of the craft would rotate in flight, so advanced electronics were needed to provide a stable video image and to handle navigation and maneuvering. The capability also included being able to hover and deposit a two-gram payload with high precision.

Lewis Page writes that the Samarai, developed under DARPA’s Nano Air Vehicle plan, was intended to be carried by U.S. soldiers or intelligence operatives in their pockets in a small blister pack. To take off it would spin up on a handheld spindle, driven by a blade-tip jet running off a tiny propane reservoir in the hub.

The propane tip-jet would offer flight endurance of twenty minutes, allowing the tiny whirling Samarai to fly off and into a target building up to a kilometer away under remote control. Advanced micro-electronics would allow it to deliver a usable video image back to its operator despite the fact that the whole thing was spinning very fast. (A Lockheed paper gives the impression that the operator might be using a Sony PSP to control the machine).

Having reconnoitered the building, and perhaps dropped off a small 2 gram “payload” — presumably a bug — the Samarai would fly out again and stall, waiting to land on command for recovery. An operator could easily carry several spare microchoppers, and refueling — “approximating the ease with which a cigarette lighter would be refueled” — would allow easy re-use.

In May 2008, though, DARPA announced that Phase II of the Nano Air vehicle contract was going to Monrovia, California-based AeroVironment, rather than Lockheed. AeroVironment — makers of the smallest drone in service, the WASP — released very little information about their own project (a clue: the company made a name for itself for developing the micro-ornithopter concept). What information was offered, was offered by DARPA’s Nano Air Vehicle fact sheet:

AeroVironment’s concept is a remote-controlled NAV called “Nano SCOUT” or Nano Sensor Covert Observer in Urban Terrain. It is a bird-like, flapping design similar to a hummingbird. Their NAV design will use flapping-wing propulsion from an all-electric power-train that is intended to propel the vehicle at 20 miles per hour in a dash mode, and slow it down to one mile per hour for precision navigation inside Buildings.

Following DARPA’s May 2008 decision, Lockheed said that they would not be continuing development of the Samarai. The decision surprised many; DARPA is not the only agency interested in ultra-small small drones. Police and fire fighters, not to mention various security agencies, might find a cheap, pocket-sized craft capable of flying indoors with a video camera invaluable in hazardous situations. Moreover, a company the size of Lockheed could certainly afford the modest costs associated with such a small platform.

The present: Katana
Well, it now appears that Lockheed has gone back on its earlier decision to abandon development efforts of the tiny machine. Page writes that given the name (katana, in Japanese, means “Samurai sword”), the relatively small amount of money involved, and the fact that it is a “mono-wing rotorcraft,” it seems that Katana is, in fact, son of Samarai. DARPA has awarded the Katana money not under the Nano Air Vehicle program, but under a general heading of “Innovative Systems” funding for which inventors are invited to apply with their own ideas. “It would seem that someone at Lockheed has jazzed up the Samarai plans in some unspecified fashion, re-applied to DARPA under the name ‘Katana,’ and so breathed life back into the program,” Page concludes