Aerosonde Ltd, now part of Textron Systems Unmanned Systems, is an Australian-based developer and manufacturer of

unmanned aerial vehicles An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

, including the

AAI Corporation Aerosonde The AAI Aerosonde is a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed to collect weather data, including temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, and wind measurements over oceans and remote areas. The Aerosonde was developed by Insitu, and i ...

series. The company has customers in Australia,

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

and

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

who use its vehicles for reconnaissance and meteorological applications.

History

The Aerosonde platform, then the sole product of Insitu inc. gained prominence on 21 August 1998 when an Aerosonde "Laima" became the first unmanned aerial vehicle to cross the

North Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe and ...

, covering a 3270 km route in a time of 26 hrs 45 min. On 22 June 2006, Aerosonde Ltd was acquired by the

AAI Corporation AAI Corporation is an aerospace and defense development and manufacturing firm, located in Hunt Valley, Maryland, US. Formerly a wholly owned subsidiary of United Industrial Corporation, AAI was acquired by Textron in 2007. It currently operates ...

. AAI was acquired in 2007 by

Textron Textron Inc. is an American industrial conglomerate based in Providence, Rhode Island. Textron's subsidiaries include Arctic Cat, Bell Textron, Textron Aviation (which itself includes the Beechcraft, and Cessna brands), and Lycoming Engines. ...

."AAI Corp Acquires Leading Australian UAV Developer Aerosonde"
June 2006. Retrieved 9 July 2012.

"Textron Buys UAV Makers AAI & Aerosonde"
''Defense Industry Daily'', 10 October 2007. Retrieved 9 July 2012.

Aircraft

References

External links

Aerosonde Ltd home page
Aircraft manufacturers of Australia Australian brands Unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturers {{aero-company-stub