Urban surveillanceSmall, silent UAV for covert urban operations

Published 15 August 2011

A 9-pound man-packable UAV called Ghost is designed for silent urban operations in daylight and at night; Ghost’s two rotary electrical engines allow it to operate in complete silence, provide real-time intelligence to ground forces working in cities and towns where densely located buildings and other urban cover can conceal enemy forces, terrorists, or other hostile combatants; the UAV is ideally suitable for law enforcement as well

Stark Aerospace's Ghost in demonstration // Source: militaryaerospace.com

Columbus, Mississippi-based Stark Aerospace, an Israel Aircraft Industry (IAI) North America company, is showing its 9-pound twin-rotor man-packable UAV called Ghost for silent urban operations in daylight and at night. IAI will unveil the covert-operations UAV this week at the AUVSI Unmanned Systems North America trade show being held in Washington, D.C. on 16-19 August. Observatoire de l’Industrie reports that the Ghost small hovering UAV which looks like a smaller – much, much smaller — version of the Boeing CH-47 Chinook twin-rotor heavy-lift helicopter. It is designed to provide real-time intelligence to ground forces working in cities and towns where densely located buildings and other urban cover can conceal enemy forces, terrorists, or other hostile combatants.

The UAV can be fitted with different imaging equipment and sensors, such as visible-light cameras and infrared sensors. Sensor data can be data-linked back to operators.

The Ghost UAV-helicopter has automatic vertical takeoff and landing capability and can loiter for as long as thirty minutes. IAI engineers designed the system with two rotary electrical engines so it can operate silently and support day and night special operations missions.

IAI designed the Ghost UAV and its control system based on computer gaming to make the system intuitive for operators, who need little training to work the system, company officials say. Two soldiers can carry the entire system in their backpacks. System components include two UAVs, batteries, control unit, and communications. Ghost is suitable for paramilitary and homeland security applications, IAI officials say.