AeroVironment

AeroVironment Inc is a technology company in Monrovia, California and Simi Valley, California that is primarily involved in energy systems, electric vehicle systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Paul B. MacCready, Jr., a famous designer of human powered aircraft, founded the company in 1971. The company is probably most well-known for developing a series of lightweight human-powered and then solar-powered vehicles.

Vehicles developed

Among the vehicles the company built are:
* Gossamer Condor - The first successful human-powered airplane. The Gossamer Condor is on display at the National Air and Space Museum, since it won the first Kremer Prize in 1977.
* Gossamer Albatross - In 1979 this human-powered plane flew mi to km|23|precision=1 across the English Channel and claimed the largest prize in aviation history. Another of these planes is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum.
* Gossamer Penguin - A solar-powered variant of the Gossamer Albatross.
* Solar Challenger - This plane flew mi to km|163|precision=1 from Paris France to England on solar power.
* Pathfinder and Pathfinder Plus - This unmanned plane, built by AeroVironment as a part of the NASA ERAST Program, demonstrated that an airplane could stay aloft for an extended period of time fueled purely by solar power. After initial successes, the Pathfinder was rebuilt into the larger Pathfinder Plus, which is also on display at the National Air and Space Museum. [http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-068-DFRC.html NASA Helios factsheet] ]
* Centurion - The Centurion was an expansion of the Pathfinder concept, designed to achieve the ERAST Program goal of sustained flight at ft to m|100000|precision=1 altitude.
* Helios Prototype - Derived from the Centurion, this solar cell and fuel cell powered UAV set a world record for flight at ft to m|96863|precision=1. It was intended to be the prototype for the production Helios aircraft, envisioned as a "atmospheric satellite". The ERAST program was terminated in 2003, and as of 2008 Helios has not entered production.
* Sunraycer - This solar-powered car won the first world's first solar car race in Australia in 1987. The next fastest car finished two days after the Sunraycer. This car is at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
* GM Impact - This was an electric car, developed as a serious prototype for a mass-production consumer car.
* Raven - a small military UAV. It is hand launched with a wingspan of ft to m|4.5|precision=1 and a weight of lb to kg|4.2|precision=1, providing color and infrared video to its handheld ground control as well as remote viewing stations. Over 9,000 Ravens have been delivered or are on order as of June 2008.
* Puma - a small lightweight, hand-launched production UAV that provides aerial observation at line-of-sight ranges up to mi to km|6.2|precision=1. Puma's avionics enable autonomous flight and precise GPS navigation. It was originally designed to demonstrate advanced propulsion technologies for such aircraft. It flew in June 2007 for five hours"Puma Small UAS Achieves Record Flight Using Fuel Cell Battery Hybrid System", "Aerotech News and Review", June 29, 2007] powered by an onboard "fuel cell battery hybrid energy storage system." Another attempt in November 2007 saw a flight time greater than seven hours [ "Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle again Achieves Record Flight Time Using Protonex Fuel Cell System Technology" [http://www.protonex.com/11-28-07%20UAV%20Flight.pdf Protonex press release Nov. 28 2007] ] . Puma integrates licensed ProCore fuel cell system technology from Protonex Technology Corporation [ [http://www.protonex.com/ Protonex Technology Corporation] ] and hydrogen generation technology from Millennium Cell, Inc. On July 2 2008, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) selected the Puma AE variant as its All Environment Capable Variant (AECV) solution.
* SkyTote - a VTOL-fixed wing hybrid UAV, which has attained the advantages of both plane designs (respectively VTOL takeoff capability and decreased energy usage)

Programs

AeroVironment holds a five-year, $4.7 million IDIQ (indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity) contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory for the development of advanced propulsion technologies for UAVs. The contract also provides for specific technological tasks such as integration of solar cells into aircraft wings, electric motor efficiency improvement technologies, and development of hydrogen storage systems for aircraft.

ubsidiaries

AeroVironment owns Skytower, Inc., with was formed in 2000 to develop the technologies and government approvals to use high altitude UAVs as "atmospheric satellites", or high altitude communications relay platforms. [http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/July2000/3781.htm "3G Tested at 65,000 feet in the stratosphere" 3G news release July 23, 2002] ]

In July 2002 the NASA/AeroVironment UAV Pathfinder Plus carried commercial communications relay equipment developed by Skytower in a test of using the aircraft as a broadcast platform. Skytower, in partnership with NASA and the Japan Ministry of Telecommunications, tested the concept of an "atmospheric satellite" by successfully using the aircraft to transmit both an HDTV signal as well as an IMT-2000 wireless communications signal from ft to m|65000|precision=1, giving the aircraft the equivalence of a mi to km|12|precision=1 tall transmitter tower. Because of the aircraft's high lookdown angle, the transmission utilized only one watt of power, or 1/10,000 of the power required by a terrestrial tower to provide the same signal. [http://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/1253 "SkyTower Successfully Tests World's First Commercial Telecom Applications from More Than 65,000 Feet in the Stratosphere", "Ewire", July 22 2002, accessed September 11 2008] ] According to Stuart Hindle, Vice President of Strategy & Business Development for SkyTower, "SkyTower platforms are basically geostationary satellites without the time delay." Further, Hindle said that such platforms flying in the stratosphere, as opposed to actual satellites, can achieve much higher levels of frequency use. "A single SkyTower platform can provide over 1,000 times the fixed broadband local access capacity of a geostationary satellite using the same frequency band, on a bytes per second per square mile basis." [http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/skytower_020724.html David, Leonard, "Stratospheric Platform Serves As Satellite" Space.com, July 24 2002, accessed September 11 2008] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.aerovironment.com/ AeroVironment website]
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