Ξ Genious Taxonomy
"It owns an impressive structure."
Ξ designed to fit and to be unmanned
Ξ created for autonomous operations
Ξ balanced architecture
Ξ aerodynamic design
Ξ embeds a lot of intelligence
Ξ rapidly deployable
Ξ designed for easy handling
yourDragonΞ has not been designed starting with a manned helicopter. Right from the beginning it has been designed to be an unmanned helicopter and using the space a pilot would have needed for hardware, engine, tank and accessories. It has been designed to be an autonomous rotary wing aircraft capable of navigating, avoiding obstacles and making decisions by itself. It has a balanced structure taking into account payloads and its mission profiles. Its aerodynamic shape is designed for agile and aggressive manoeuvres at low altitudes and tight places. For autonomy it embeds a lot of sophisticated software and hardware and a reliable and powerful engine.
Its shape and size were designed so that it fits inside a smart pod, which can be handled easily and deployed as standard pods, bombs and cartridges are handled. Automated stores can fetch a pod, which has the most suitable UAV helicopter inside and if required, update its software and data for the next mission before the pod is delivered from the store. When it has completed its mission, it is packed inside a pod again and stored to wait for the next deployment »Ξ
Figure 1: yourDragonΞ designed to fit and to be rapidly deployable
It has been designed to fit. It can be handled easily and automatically as as standard bombs and pods when it is inside a pod. Pod protects it so it takes tough handling during transportation. It is embeddable inside a smart pod, which can update its software and also provide electricity and protect against cold temperatures.
It is rapidly deployable with a fixed or rotary wing aircraft, from a carrier or other mobile sea platform, from van or truck. Its size mimics that of the MK-83. It fits inside special purpose pods. To fit inside pods and to shelter at autonomous bases, foldable blades were designed. They are also needed when it hatches in the air »Ξ
Ξ Strong & Extremely Light Body
"It has hollow bones."
Ξ composite materials
Ξ light components
Ξ hybrid structures
Fuselage has been designed the latest composite materials in mind. This makes its manufacturing more efficient and economic and maintenance and repair more cost effective. Components used are light and the number of components have been minimized to save costs and to make it reliable.
If hydrogen is used for electricity power (MH2), it is stored in metal hybrides which can efficiently contain hydrogen inside chrystal structures. When liquid hydrogen (LH2) is used as a fuel, LH2 tank is designed with the latest materials to keep it is as light and small as possible »Ξ
yourDragonΞ has been designed to be deployable by a fighter
from mobile platforms such as a carrier. It has to take the vibration caused by launching the fighter from a carrier.
While a fighter carries it inside the pod it has to stand
g-forces the pilot uses to reach target and, if necessary, fight an enemy.
When the fighter drops it inside the pod and when the pod reaches a desired altitude,
its engine must start and all of its hardware must work when it hatches in the air.
Its hardware and engine must stand extreme altitudes, speed and temperatures inside Pod4Xi during flight. Sometimes the fighter doesn't drop the pod in which case it has to take the trembling caused when fighter lands, specially to a carrier due to arrestor wires. It has been designed to stand deployments at carriers. Because it is small it is deployable inside pods. It does not carry extra hardware, because its hardware is reconfigurable for multiple missions. It is embeddable inside bombs, rapidly deployable and designed to fit ! »Ξ
Ξ Well-Developed Brain
"It's multi-headed."
Ξ gimbal embedding several cameras
Ξ several sensors & processors
Ξ multiple network resources in use
Its gimbal embeds the video and still cameras it uses both for navigation and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations. It also has several sensors to provide more data about environment.
Its several processors analyse the collected data. It utilizes sophisticated reasoners and fuzzy logic for autonomous decisions.
Being a networked rotary wing air vehicle it is capable of using network resources and collaborating with many computers and in several networks including the wireless ad-hoc sensor networks it has built by itself by dropping sensors »Ξ
yourDragonΞ contains several microprocessors, which can process the demanding tasks required by autonomous & unmanned operations.
Several DSP processors analyse and process signals it receives from multiple sensors and detectors it has embedded.
Large main memory helps its image processing and analysis for agile and aggressive manoeuvres and to detect objects and movement defined in its mission profile. It uses flash memory to keep some of its data and instructions.
Big mass memories help it to process several tasks concurrently and to handle big photographs and video streams. Unfiltered data from dropped and embedded sensors is stored in mass memory to get downloaded to base for filtering, processing and data mining creating valuable information.
Sophisticated operating system runs its applications and controls hardware. For navigation and autonomous operations it may use fuzzy logic and reasoning & ontology »Ξ