V-200 Unmanned Helicopter Conducts Surveillance Flight Trials

By Mike Ball / 02 Dec 2021
Skeldar V-200 unmanned helicopter
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Skeldar V-200 unmanned helicopter

UMS Skeldar has confirmed that its V-200 helicopter UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) has successfully completed a five-day series of surveillance flight trial demonstrations aboard the Finnish Border Guard vessel OPV Turva. The flights formed part of the Valvonta2 project, which is funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund and aims to achieve an understanding of how authorities could use UAVs for diverse and demanding operations at sea both now and in future scenarios.

During the trials, the V-200 completed multiple operational flights and successfully demonstrated a range of features including automatic take-off and landing (ATOL) capabilities; vessel identification at different ranges and altitudes; search and rescue during both day and night; AIS; and transponder demonstrations. The unmanned helicopter was equipped with a multiple sensor suite of Automatic Identification System (AIS), Wescam MX-8 Electro Optical and Infrared (EO/IR) sensors as well as the high-capacity Leonardo Pico-SAR Synthetic Aperture Radar.

The V-200 is the unmanned maritime platform of choice for a range of governments and institutions, and has previously been selected by the German, Royal Canadian, Belgian and Royal Netherlands Navies. It provides embedded ‘eye in the sky’ intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities to enhance its capacity to perform primary and secondary missions.

Stefan Hyltberg, Programme Manager for UMS Skeldar, commented; “These flight trials demonstrate that the Skeldar V-200 platform is the perfect fully-developed ATOL choice for maritime missions. Its adeptness at operating from a range of naval ships using the market-leading heavy-fuel engine from Hirth Engines in combination with its multiple sensor carrying capability give the Skeldar V-200 a real advantage over its competitors. Our team is proud to have its work recognised by the Finnish Border Guard.”

“As we have proven with these trials, the Skeldar V-200 continues to provide best-in-class capabilities for customers. Continuous development of our Skeldar V-200 and V-150 aims to not only validate the platforms’ capabilities, but also analyse customer requirements with a view to increase the service suite UMS Skeldar provides.”

Posted by Mike Ball Mike Ball is our resident technical editor here at Unmanned Systems Technology. Combining his passion for teaching, advanced engineering and all things unmanned, Mike keeps a watchful eye over everything related to the unmanned technical sector. With over 10 years’ experience in the unmanned field and a degree in engineering, Mike’s been heading up our technical team here for the last 8 years. Connect & Contact