Phase II for AV's nano aircraft

War against terrorists and insurgents often involves fighting in urban areas. Usual means of gathering intelligence may not be suitable for well-built areas, so soldiers and law enforcement should be interested in this innovation: Monrovia, California-based AeroVironment (AV) has been awarded a Phase II contract by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to design and build a flying prototype for the Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) program. AV completed a preliminary design review at the end of its Phase I, $1.7 million program. Phase II, which was initiated in March, is a new six-month, $636,000 development program that will culminate with the demonstration of a rudimentary, 7.5 centimeters flapping-wing air vehicle. The NAV program was initiated by DARPA to develop a new class of air vehicles capable of indoor and outdoor operations. Employing biomimetics at an extremely small scale this unconventional aircraft is designed to provide new military reconnaissance capabilities in urban environments. AV’s NAV will weigh no more than 10 grams and have the ability to carry a payload of up to 2 grams. AV’s NAV team has already developed the Black Widow and Wasp MAVs for DARPA. ‘Our Raven and Wasp III unmanned aircraft system (UAS) began as early development programs similar to the NAV program, and now help protect the lives and enhance the operational effectiveness of warfighters and first responders,’ said John Grabowsky, AV executive vice president and general manager of unmanned aircraft systems.

U.S. armed forces use AV’s hand-launched UAS for missions including base security, route reconnaissance, mission planning, battle damage assessment and force protection. The U.S. Army reported that its Ravens were flown for approximately 150,000 combat hours in 2007. AV has delivered over 9,000 small, unmanned aircraft to date, including Raven, Wasp and Puma.