Kitemill showcases wind-powered tethered ISR UAV

Kitemill's Kitewall tethered ISR UAV. (Kitemill)

Norwegian company Kitemill showcased its Kitewall tethered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system at the DroneX exhibition, held in London from 29–30 September, presenting a surveillance application for technology originally developed to generate wind power.

According to Kitemill data its airborne wind-energy technology generates electricity by using the UAV's pull on the tether to drive a generator at the ground station. The company lists Kitewall's wind-generation capacity as 15 kW and describes the system as producing more energy than the airborne platform and ground station consume.

The platform is designed to harness wind energy to support persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.

According to Kitemill, Kitewall can carry a 20 kg payload at altitudes of up to 500 m and is intended for continuous operation. It adds that the system has an 80 km line-of-sight/radio horizon at 500 m. The company describes the system as payload agnostic, enabling customers to integrate sensors and communications equipment.

Kitewall can support electro-optical/infrared sensors and radio-frequency detection equipment. Individual systems can operate independently or be deployed in a ‘wall' formation, combining sensor data and overlapping coverage for wide-area surveillance. Kitemill states that the platform generates surplus power for ground equipment, while an optional fibre-optic link in the tether provides data transmission.

The UAV can be flown untethered for ISR missions with a 50 km radio line-of-sight (RLOS) range. Its datalink uses the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) with a 256-bit key.

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