Cargo drones carrying relief supplies to be even safer in the future

HENSOLDT and the Dutch company Wings For Aid have agreed to start a strategic partnership to improve the air safety of Wings for Aid’s cargo drones in two steps.

Wings For Aid developed the “MiniFreighter”, a 650-kg Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) that delivers humanitarian goods to people isolated by natural disasters and man-made crises.

In the first phase, the cargo drones will be equipped with the “SferiRec LCR 100” flight data recorder to improve the recording capability of the aircraft flight attitude data and the flight control system. The drone has already completed successful flight tests at various locations, including Magdeburg-Cochstedt Airfield (Germany)

As a further possible second step, additional technical upgrades might be added to increase aircraft autonomy and improve the Wings For Aid flight test capability as an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and global system provider. The operational data collected from test and flight missions up to that point can be used directly for this purpose. Capabilities such as “Detect and Avoid” (DAA) and the improvement of the Drop Zone Safety Automation System should then ensure that the operational range is increased and the workload of the pilot operator is significantly reduced. This is essential to scale up so-called Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flights with multiple aircraft.

“We are very proud to be making a contribution that will enable relief supplies to be transported to crisis areas even faster and more cost-effectively in the future,” says Steffen Kolditz, Head of the Airborne Solutions business unit at HENSOLDT.