Elistair, a developer of drones for military, security, and industrial usage, unveiled its new Orion 2 tethered drone Thursday.
The Orion 2 “hexacopter” represents a leap forward in tethered drone performance, able to conduct surveillance for up to 24 hours at a time.
Previous drones, while performing an important security function for many years, have been beset by limitations.
Timothée Penet, CTO and co-founder of Elistair, described how these limitations led to the development of the advanced Orion 2 system.
“Small, unmanned multi-rotor systems are great if you want a hover-and-stare capability, but they’re also notoriously short on battery life. Powered tethering stations, like our Safe 2 and Ligh-T 4, offer a solution by increasing a platform’s time in the air–and that’s great for many missions. But what if you need to be on station for a whole day?”
The durable, lightweight Orion 2 features enhanced flight duration, able to deploy for up to 24 hours at a stretch through a series of innovations such as an added safety battery which can recharge in the air.
Designed as a “quick deploy system” with “automatic push-button takeoff and landing,” additional advances include a series of redundancies and optimized components allowing the drone to stay in the air for much longer than previous models.
The UAV includes a 330-foot microtether and flies higher than its predecessor, the original Orion drone, which monitored the 2018 Ryder Cup for 8 to 11 hours a day and has been employed by the French police, British military, and Singapore government.
The Orion 2 is able to cover more ground and carry up to 2 kg (4.4 pounds) of payload. It also features georeferenced and thermal image streaming, and deployes 4G/5G communications with an optional fiber cable.