Future Mini UAVs with Heated Pitot and 5-Hole Probes - Definition of New Standard for All-Weather Capability
Mini UAVs usually have not enough space or payload volume to carry an advanced Air Data Computer (ADC) with integrated or external heater. That's even more critical when we deal with standard fuselage-wing configurations and is still problematic for flying wings with a very high, sailplane-like aspect-ratio.
So small to medium sized motor gliders even in X-wing configuration with span widths up to 2.6 meters and maximum take-off-weights (MTOWs) up to 12 kg have almost no extra payload volume inside the narrow fuselage to carry a bulky ADC with heater, extra batteries and thus about 400-500 gram extra weight.
The payload weight ratio to MTOW in standard configurations is usually 16 to 25%. That means 2-3 kg for a 12 kg or only 1.3-2.0 kg for a 8 kg drone. That's not much. So there are still no mini UAVs available which are capable to fly at all-weather conditions.
Many mini UAVs can withstand higher wind velocities which is good but are not operational or lost at heavy rain, snowy and frosty weather conditions. In such kind of difficult situations, you definetly need a high-end heated pitot or 5-hole probe with a working rain water drainage.
We at
@ElectroFluidSys tems have obviously developed the world's first high-end mini UAV system with a certified heated pitot tube with rain water drainage. It will be available on both the intelligence and interceptor variants. In our case we selected the ADC-10 with the heated HPS-1 pitot tube from the Swiss Simtec AG (
@swissairdata). All three Western manufacturers (
@AeroprobeCorp,
@SwissAirData,
@Vectoflow) of high-end pitot and 5-hole probe systems with advanced ADC were surprised and told us that they have no mini UAV customers so far. Their products are usually designed for bigger drones like tactical or strategic UAVs.
For our onboard plasma flow control system, we would prefer a heated 5-hole-probe which is usually only available at bigger diameters beyond 10 or 15 mm. More than 9 mm would be not acceptable anymore. But Vectoflow is developing a 5-hole-probe with 8 mm using advanced additive manufacturing. Unfortunately, their ADC has the heater integrated as it was never considered for mini UAVs.
They could be interested to work on highly miniaturized versions as we will need ten thousands of all-weather capable high-end mini UAVs in the upcoming years. In any case, we think about to combine Vectoflow's 5-hole-probe with the ADC-9 from Simtec for the next bigger model Plasma Falcon 1.66.