Sweden - APID 60

Sweden’s CybAero AB, in collaboration with the Norwegian Coast Guard and Coastal Agency, has conducted a series of flights with its unmanned helicopter, the APID 60, in winds up to gale force.

The flights took place over the Arctic Ocean, near the Norwegian village of Vardø, on behalf of “Arctic UAS” (Arctic Unmanned Aircraft Systems). During these flight tests the APID 60 carried a high precision landing system from EADS Astrium enabling fully autonomous, precision take-offs and landings from ships.

The flights were carried out under realistic conditions in some of the world’s most extreme weather conditions. In collaboration with civil organizations, inter alia, the Norwegian Coast Guard vessel KV Farm and the rescue and service vessel Normand Jarl, different applications were tested such as shoreline search and rescue, the monitoring and controlling of oil spill clean-up efforts at the deployment of oil booms. CybAero also simulated missions such as reconnaissance and surveillance of terrorist and smuggling activities.

“It’s one thing to show that you can fly, but quite another to actually perform the task in these harsh conditions. The fully autonomous landing system developed by Astrium is currently integrated into the APID 60 and is seen as one key component for managing assignments of this nature,” says Andreas Gising, Flight Operations Officer and Manager on site in Vardø. “The performance of the Astrium High-Precision Local Navigation System is fully in line with the requirements we face for automated ship-board operations.”

The ability to quickly determine the location of oil spills was highly appreciated by the Coast Guard.

“These flights have shown that small unmanned aircraft have distinct competitive advantages over manned aircraft. We have a robust product in our APID 60 which is the world’s only complete helicopter-UAS system and a highly skilled team that can develop systems tailored for difficult and dangerous missions” says Leif Erlandsson, CEO of CybAero.