14 Apr 2024

At Singleton training area, Ichor Autonomy demonstrated and tested our prototype UAS, nominally named Venti (name subject to change) in front of an audience of Defence members and scientists as part of the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA) Sovereign Drone Challenge. The Venti is conceived to replace commercial surveillance drones and provide a consistent eyes-on in support of small teams.

Over a period of three months, Ichor Autonomy underwent a significant period of innovation to generate the drone, capable of meeting the extended endurance and range requirements for flight and video transmission, and a ground controller as well. There were also significant price restrictions as well as restrictions on country of origin for certain parts of the system

We spent that time focusing predominately in lightweight designs and developing our own flight controller (FC) and 4 in 1 electronic speed controller (ESC) flight stacks, to meet these restrictions. Creating a featherweight drone that utilised Australian radios for long range video streaming.

The testing went generally pretty well, until an unfortunate interaction with a Wedgetail Eagle over a live fire trace at 1.4 km. I guess the the incumbents of the sky don’t always want to play nice!