Whereas a lot of the drone {industry}’s consideration is on the AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2023 convention occurring this week on the Colorado Conference Middle, a massively essential drone was simply launched at a very totally different occasion. Army know-how firm Pink Cat formally launched its new military-grade sUAS, the Teal 2 drone, on the latest 2023 AAAA Military Aviation Mission Options Summit.
The navy summit, which was held in Nashville, Tennessee, handled attendees to the world’s first-ever public show of the Teal 2 drone. The drone’s key differentiator is nighttime operations, a characteristic that’s especially-crucial for navy operations.
“Most navy operations happen at evening, and the Teal 2 is precisely the sUAS that warfighters have been asking for,” Pink Cat CEO Jeff Thompson stated in a ready assertion.
If the title Teal 2 feels considerably acquainted to you, that’s as a result of the drone isn’t utterly new. It was beforehand obtainable solely to early-adopter clients, which included U.S. Customs and Border Safety. In actual fact, that company ordered 54 items of the Teal 2 to offer supplemental airborne reconnaissance, surveillance and monitoring functionality, enhancing situational consciousness for U.S. discipline commanders and brokers. Teal additionally had been visiting NATO international locations to debate how Ukrainian forces may use the Teal 2 to counter Russian forces notably after darkish.
And now, the U.S.-made Teal 2 is now obtainable to order for navy, authorities and business functions.
The brand new Teal 2 drone is ready to be interesting for a couple of causes. Certain, there are the specs themselves (extra on these later), however the truth that it’s an American-made drone is particularly standout. The U.S.-made system is manufactured at Pink Cat’s purpose-built manufacturing unit in Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah.
Pink Cat subsidiary Teal Drones can be licensed as “Blue UAS,” which is a designation given to producers who’re deemed licensed to offer tools to the U.S. navy. Teal can be one in all solely three drone producers invited to take part within the U.S. Military’s Quick Vary Reconnaissance Tranche 2 (SRR T2), which was created to seek out corporations that may ship a transportable drone usable inside military platoons for surveillance and reconnaissance duties, in addition to to enhance situational consciousness.
Concerning the Teal 2 drone
The Teal 2 drone, which is being marketed with the slogan ‘Dominate the Night time’ is a powerhouse within the darkness, largely because of a partnership with thermal digicam maker FLIR. The drone is powered by a Snapdragon 845 as its most important processor.
With it, the Teal 2 claims the title of the primary drone to be outfitted with Teledyne FLIR’s new Hadron 640R sensor. This gives finish customers with the very best decision thermal imaging in a small (Group 1) type issue, optimized for nighttime operations (extra on the FLIR sensor right here).
The drone itself is tremendous small with a compact, rugged design that’s designed to be moveable in only a backpack. It weighs 2.75 lbs. The drone can fly for not less than half-hour as much as a most flight velocity of 23 mph, and it has a 5 km vary from the controller.
Talking of the controller, it’s known as Teal Air Management (TAC) and it affords AES-256 encryption with a 720p downlink decision. The Android-powered controller is heavier than the drone itself, at 3.7 lbs, and it has 6 hours of battery life.
Concerning the Hadron 640R twin visible-thermal payload
A standout characteristic of the Teal 2 drone is its Hadron 640R twin visible-thermal payload. Just like the Teal 2 drone, the Hadron 640R can be made in the united statesA.
It pairs a 640×512 decision radiometric Boson thermal digicam with a 64MP seen digicam collectively right into a single easy-to-integrate module designed for drones just like the Teal 2, in addition to different unmanned floor automobiles (UGV), robotic platforms, and AI-ready purposes the place battery life and run-time are mission-critical.
“Teledyne FLIR maintains a powerful observe file of innovation by growing industry-leading thermal imaging sensors and supporting integrators via the event and launch cycle,” stated George Matus, founder and CEO of Teal, in a ready assertion. “Hadron 640R gives the military-grade Teal 2 with the situational consciousness front-line personnel require to dominate the evening in help of protection and public security operations in quite a lot of environments.”
See the Teal 2 drone in motion, right here:
What’s Teal (and its father or mother, Pink Cat)?
Teal is owned by Puerto Rico-based Pink Cat, which owns notable enterprise and navy drone corporations like Teal and Skypersonic. It additionally not too long ago invested in Firestorm, a U.S.-based firm constructing a modular drone that can be 3D-printed and payload agnostic (which may show to be a critical navy drone duo when paired with Teal’s choices). Pink Cat additionally has partnerships with Tomahawk Robotics and Reveal Expertise.
Teal began within the early 2010s, led by a then teenage founder with the promise of modular drones largely targeted at shoppers. Its founder, George Matus, is now in his 20s, and Teal is concentrated now on navy drones.
In 2019, Teal grew to become one in all six corporations awarded a collective $11 million to design and construct drones that meet Military necessities. In 2020 it launched the Teal Golden Eagle, a $14,800 business drone platform designed for aerial surveillance that’s on the Division of Defenses’ Protection Innovation Unit Blue UAS Cleared Record.
Teal to staff up with Doodle Labs
Individually, Teal introduced that it’s going to accomplice with Doodle Labs, which builds Blue UAS-certified, industrial-grade wi-fi networking options, to assist construct its sUAS prototype for the U.S. Military’s Quick Vary Reconnaissance (SRR) program.
By means of the partnership, Teal will combine Doodle Labs’ Helix Mesh Rider Radio into its SRR prototype, enabling it to reliably transmit thermal imagery, AES-256 encrypted video and different high-bandwidth knowledge again to a floor station 3+ miles away. Mesh Rider Radio makes use of FIPS 140-3 licensed encryption, defending this knowledge and flight management performance even in contested environments. Teal’s beforehand introduced know-how companions for its SRR effort embrace Teledyne FLIR and Immervision.
