“Our smaller T-150 has been tested and operated for years by the UK MoD and US DoD,” said Malloy Aeronautics CEO Oriol Badia. “T-600 has gone from concept to operational demonstrator in record time for a vehicle in this payload class.”
Capable of vertical take-off and landing, electrically-powered quadcopter T-600 can carry 200kg and travel at up to 140km/h. Payload-dependent range is up to 80km.
“It is around the size of a small car and is designed to be disassembled for transportation,” said BAE. “During the exercise, the demonstrator released an inert Sting Ray anti-submarine torpedo during a flight mission at sea for the first time.”
This adds torpedo launching to last-mile re-supply and casualty evacuation roles already demonstrated, it added.
T-600 is a proof-of-concept pre-cursor to the planned T-650 “which will offer reconfiguration capabilities applicable to military, commercial and humanitarian uses”, said BAE.
L3 Harris and General Dynamics UK were also partners in the demonstration.
The exercise, called Repmus (Robotic experimentation and prototyping with maritime un-crewed systems) involved 15 NATO countries as well as Ireland and Sweden. “It provided a safe and controlled area to test concepts, requirements and advancing technologies in respect of maritime un-crewed systems”, said BAE.
