The Sagitta Research Demonstrator from

Airbus Defence and Space Airbus Defence and Space is the division of Airbus SE responsible for the development and manufacturing of the corporation's defence and space products, while also providing related services. The division was formed in January 2014 during the ...

is a jet powered

UAV 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 ...

developed in cooperation with German research institutes as part of the Open Innovation initiative.

History

The goal of the open innovation program is the advancement of the continuous exchange between industry and research institutes in the area of technologies for unmanned aerial vehicles. In 2010 research studies were launched at the academic partner institutes at

Technical University of Chemnitz Technical may refer to: * Technical (vehicle), an improvised fighting vehicle * Technical analysis, a discipline for forecasting the future direction of prices through the study of past market data * Technical drawing, showing how something is co ...

and

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; german: Technische Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Establis ...

, the

Bundeswehr University Munich image:Eingangsbereich der Universität der Bundeswehr München.jpg, 200px, Entrance to the university Bundeswehr University Munich (german: Universität der Bundeswehr München, UniBw München) is one of two research universities in Germany at fe ...

, the technical university Ingolstadt and at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) at Braunschweig and Oberpfaffenhofen. All partners designed and built unmanned research aircraft to demonstrate technologies out of the research programme. The first flight took place 5 July 2017 at the Denel Overberg Test Range in South Africa.

Development

All subsystems were developed and built by partners. Final integration and testing took place at the military aircraft centre of Airbus in Manching, Bavaria, Germany.

Design

The unmanned aircraft has a wingspan and length of approximately 3,00m and a maximum mass of 150 kg. It is powered by two BF-300F jet engines from BF Turbines with 300 N thrust each. It offers space for several experiments. The pitch, roll and yaw control surfaces are actuated by electric actuators (fly-by-wire). The landing gear is retracted electrically. The flight control system consist of a flight control computer, a navigation unit (differential

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

and

INS INS or Ins or ''variant'', may refer to: Places * Ins, Switzerland, a municipality * Creech Air Force Base (IATA airport code INS) * Indonesia, ITF and UNDP code INS Biology *'' Ins'', a New World genus of bee flies * INS, the gene for the insul ...

) and an air data system. A mission computer is installed to manage and execute mission tasks. The flight and the mission are controlled by a ground control station. The aircraft communicates via multiple data links. Flights are fully automatic, including take-off and landing (ATOL).

References

{{Reflist

Sources

Successful first flight of UAV demonstrator SAGITTA, Airbus Press releaseSAGITTA meistert erfolgreich Erstflug, DLR PressemeldungErfolgreicher Erstflug von Sagitta, FlugrevueExperimental investigations on vortex flow phenomena of a diamond wing configuration, A. Hövelmann, C. Breitsamter
* Propulsion System Integration and Thrust Vectoring Aspects for Scaled Jet UAS, Bougas, L. & Hornung, M. CEAS Aeronaut J (2013) 4: 327.
Unsteady Aerodynamics of the Sagitta Flying Wing Configuration, S.Pfnür, C. BreitsamterDesign Process and Manufacturing of an Unmanned Blended Wing-body Aircraft, B. Gramüller, F. Stroscher, J. Schmidt, T. Ungwattanapanit, T. Löbl, M. HankeDesign of the general systems for the SAGITTA demonstrator UAV, A. Bierig, F. Nikodem, P. Gallun, C. Greiner-Perth, 2017 ICUASDesign of a retractable landing gear for the SAGITTA demonstrator UAV, F. Nikodem, F. Möller, P. Gallun, A. Bierig, DLR, DLRK 2017

External links

Sagitta Projektseite der Professur für Flugmechanik und Flugführung, UniBw München

Sagitta Projektseite der Professur für Luftfahrttechnik, UniBw München

Sagitta project website, DLR Institute of Flight Systems
Airbus Defence and Space aircraft Unmanned aerial vehicles of Germany Unmanned experimental aircraft