A military drone designed in downtown Denver was shown publicly for the first time Tuesday at AUVSI XPONENTIAL, the largest trade show for unmanned systems and robotics being held at the Colorado Convention Center this week.
Aeryon Defense USA introduced the R80D SkyRaider, a multi-mission Defense and Federal Government Group 1 Vertical Takeoff and Landing small unmanned aircraft system.
It’s a multi-mission drone that can carry almost anything up to four and a half pounds. The developers here in Denver customized it for the U.S. military to use for all types of missions.
“So instead of just a day and night camera for the infantry, this product can be used for signals intelligence and electronic warfare,” Tom Jackson, Vice President and General Manager of Aeryon Defense USA, said. “We use it to drop and pickup payloads, packages. Everything from MRE’s to ammunition and radios.”
The core product was designed at the Aeryon Defense lab in Waterloo, Canada. This base product, without the bells and whistles for military use, still has high-tech software and will be available for commercial customers.
“The base platform will also be used for commercial customers, for public safety and law enforcement,” Jackson said. “They wouldn’t have the same payloads necessarily but they’d have the same high tech design, redundancy, communication, navigation which makes them a much safer platform especially for civilian use.”
The commercial off the shelf product is developed in Aeryon Labs in Waterloo, but in downtown Denver the products are customized to meet mission requirements of the U.S. Department of Defense and Federal Agencies.
