Boeing‘s [BA] Insitu subsidiary recently said it has introduced a new, man-portable small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) for the public safety market.
The short-range Inceptor UAS weighs less than four pounds, fits into the trunk of a squad car and provides stable, real-time video to a handheld ground control station. Insitu says the system can operate in sustained winds and wind gusts and still provide stable imagery.
The rotorcraft can stay aloft and operate for more than 20 minutes at up to 400 feet of altitude and patrol at speeds up to 24 mph.
Insitu is initially focusing on the law enforcement market for Inceptor, although it is already generated interest from the military, Border Patrol and even farmers, Paul McDuffee, a business development executive with Insitu, told Defense Daily. But for now the company remains committed to going after law enforcement customers, he said.
McDuffee said the company doesn’t have an initial market size for its micro-UAS other than to say that the law enforcement community across the United States is expressing a lot if interest.
The micro-UAS is a new direction for Insitu, which supplies the much larger ScanEagle UAS to the Defense Department and is developing an even larger UAS, the Integrator for the DoD. The company has partnered with Adaptive Flight, Inc., which is providing the flight control system that McDuffee said is ahead of the competition in terms of enabling stable flight in windy conditions up to 25 and 30 knots.
Inceptor also features auto-tracking of a target and can fly autonomously from point-to-point based on pre-programmed instruction or be operated manually by the handheld unit.
Insitu is developing a beta version of Inceptor it plans shortly to deliver to initial customers to gain operational lessons and provide feedback to the company before beginning full production in the first quarter of 2012, McDuffee said.
Insitu believes the timing is right to enter the micro-UAS field for the domestic market given that the Federal Aviation Administration is moving, albeit slowly, toward integration of small UAS into the national air space, McDuffee said. This fall the FAA is expected to release a notice of proposed rulemaking that will mark the “first concrete steps” for integrating these systems into the national air space, he said.
This is a “big deal” because it marks the “first attempt at baseline requirements for national air space flight” for small UAS, McDuffee said. Small UAS are defined as weighing less than 55-pounds.
Insitu plans to offer Inceptor for about $50,000, the price of a well equipped Crown Victoria operated by police forces, McDuffee said.