Aeryon Scout is a small

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops ( skirmishe ...

unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controll ...

(UAV) that was designed and built by

Aeryon Labs Aeryon Labs is a Canadian developer and manufacturer of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Founded in 2007, it is headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario. Aeryon Defense is a wholly owned subsidiary, based in Denver, Colorado, focused on sales and support ...

of Waterloo,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, Canada. The vehicle was developed between 2007 and 2009 and produced from 2009-2015. Production has been completed and it is no longer advertised for sale on the company website. The Scout is a vertical take-off and landing

VTOL A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust-vectoring fixed-wi ...

quadcopter A quadcopter or quadrotor is a type of helicopter with four rotors. Although quadrotor helicopters and convertiplanes have long been flown experimentally, the configuration remained a curiosity until the arrival of the modern UAV or drone. T ...

requiring no launch equipment. It can hover in a fixed position and weighs without payload.

Design and development

The Scout is a

in layout, with four rotors mounted on booms and four

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Mart ...

legs. Payloads are mounted underneath the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

on a

gimbal A gimbal is a pivoted support that permits rotation of an object about an axis. A set of three gimbals, one mounted on the other with orthogonal pivot axes, may be used to allow an object mounted on the innermost gimbal to remain independent of ...

mount.Aeryon Labs
Aerial Intelligence in the Palm of Your Hand
, dated 2013, retrieved 10 December 2013 The Scout can be operated beyond the line of sight up to from the user, with a designed operational altitude

above ground level In aviation, atmospheric sciences and broadcasting, a height above ground level (AGL or HAGL) is a height measured with respect to the underlying ground surface. This is as opposed to height above mean sea level (AMSL or HAMSL), height above elli ...

of 300 to 500 feet at flying speeds of up to and an endurance of 25 minutes. The Scout's design allows flight in adverse weather conditions and it has been flown in wind speeds of and temperatures ranging from −30 °C to +50 °C. All communications are digital and encrypted, which reduces the risk of hijacking and video interception. The Scout is controlled with a

Tablet PC A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being comput ...

-based interface. This system differs from the customary method of joystick control in allowing users to operate the vehicle with minimal training. The Scout is piloted by pointing to an area on the map. Height is controlled using a scroll on the touch screen interface. The system operates using custom or commercially available map data in several formats including

MrSID MrSID (pronounced Mister Sid) is an acronym that stands for ''multiresolution seamless image database''. It is a file format (filename extension ''.sid'') developed and patented by LizardTech (in October 2018 absorbed into Extensis) for encoding o ...

. Real-time maps can also be used during flight and the Scout can be flown real-time by the operator or pre-programmed to fly a series of GPS waypoints. The Scout constantly monitors external conditions such as wind speed, as well as internal functions, such as battery level, allowing it to make an automated decisions en route to return home, land immediately or hover and wait. The Scout has a quick-change payload interface with common interfaces including USB and

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...

, which allows custom payloads to be developed. The system is able to detect the type of payload connected, and configure it and operate it appropriately. The payload capacity of the system is . Offered payloads include gimbal-mounted digital still and video cameras, a near-IR camera for remote sensing, a

FLIR Forward-looking infrared (FLIR) cameras, typically used on military and civilian aircraft, use a thermographic camera that senses infrared radiation. The sensors installed in forward-looking infrared cameras, as well as those of other thermal ...

night-vision camera and a stabilized 10x Optical Zoom camera.

Operators

* BP * Halton Regional Police Service * Libyan National Liberation Army (

National Transitional Council The National Transitional Council of Libya ( ar, المجلس الوطني الإنتقالي '), sometimes known as the Transitional National Council, was the ''de facto'' government of Libya for a period during and after the Libyan Civil War ...

) *

Ontario Provincial Police The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) is the provincial police service of Ontario, Canada. Under its provincial mandate, the OPP patrols provincial highways and waterways, protects provincial government buildings and officials, patrols unincorp ...

Saudi Arabian Army Royal Saudi Land Forces ( ar, القُوَّاتُ البَرِّيَّةُ المَلَكِيَّة السُّعُودِيَّة, Al-Quwwat al-Bariyah al-Malakiyah as-Su'udiyah) is the land warfare service branch of the Armed Forces of Saudi Arab ...

Specifications

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.aeryon.com

Scout Scout may refer to: Youth movement *Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement ** Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom **Scouts BSA, secti ...

Airborne military robots Quadrotors Reconnaissance aircraft Unmanned aerial vehicles of Canada 2000s Canadian helicopters

Design and development

Operators

Specifications

See also

References

External links