ACR has developed three unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), launchers, integrated ground control systems (iGCS), tracking antenna, and an array of electronic and optical sensor packages since 2001. The Silver Fox, Manta and Coyote UAVs have proven to be lower cost and offer exceptional endurance in battle front tested missions with a versatile, small footprint that can be operated by the end user with minimal training.
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The UAV capabilities have be evaluated by elements of U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force and Coast Guard via experimentation, user evaluations and development programs funded by the Office of Naval Research, Naval Air Systems Command, Office of Force Transformation, U.S. Army Battle Laboratories, Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology, NOAA, and NASA.
Some of the military missions included evaluations and use by the Canadian National Defence Force, evaluations by the New Zealand Ministry of Defence, and Australian and Colombian military under military to military exchange programs. In each operation the Silver Fox or Manta UAVs were found to meet most or exceed other mission requirements. These flight operations also became the catalyst for spiral improvement of our UAVs that will continue as demands increase for additional capability, endurance and ease of operation.
The evaluations and development programs included many first uses of UAVs by military units and scientists and provided data with capabilities in some instances never used before. The Silver Fox and Manta UAVs have been operated from naval rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIB) independently or deployed from the navy’s experimental high speed, all carbon fiber vessel Stiletto. It was flown for missions in Colombia and Philippines and scientific missions in the Maldives, Greenland and Hawaii.
The versatility and lower cost operation of our family of UAVs allowed scientists to get the first ever images of Mount Saint Helens second eruption by flying the Silver Fox UAV in and around the active volcano in 2004. A scientific team lead by the world’s leading researchers in atmospheric brown cloud phenomenon from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography also flew the Manta UAV. Three Manta UAVs flew simultaneously in a vertical stacked formation each in a circle of less than 30 meters separated by nearly a mile from top to bottom while flying for hours at a time above, in and below target clouds while measuring and collecting conclusive data on environmental air pollution dynamics.
In August 2007, Silver Fox and Manta UAVs were flown as part of a NOAA and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) study of the polar glacial melt rate in Greenland. During the expedition an electric Silver Fox UAV flew a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) as well as high resolution imagery recorded in remote glacial areas.
What follows are a series of images and video clips that document the unique capabilities of ACR’s family of UAVs that have been deployed for scientific research, supporting the fight against terrorism and homeland security.
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UAV Image Galleries
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Tucson,
Arizona 85706