Thursday, May 24, 2012

AeroVironment Eyes Civilian Market With FCC Demo

Monrovia, California-based unmanned aircraft maker Aerovironment said today that it is looking to demonstrate the use of its small, unmanned aircraft for use in post-disaster communications, for the Federal Communications Commission. The UAV maker, which currently sells its aircraft to the military, said the demonstration is for the FCC's Deployable Aerial Communications Architecture (DACA) Notice of Inquiry (NOI) proceedings, which is aimed at finding aerial platforms to help bring communications back to areas after a natural or man-made disaster, when existing communications networks are unusable. Aerovironment said it will use one of its hand-launched, small UAS as a airborne communications relay; those unmanned aircraft currently can fly between 45 minutes and two hours.

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