Urban-Air Port, Drone Evolution Announce “Defence Collaboration to Revolutionise UAV Operations”

Urban-Air Port (UAP) has come along way since April 2022, when the com­pa­ny launched its Air One Ver­ti­port and dis­played it in Coven­try over 18 days for the pub­lic to view. Over 15,000 peo­ple vis­it­ed the event.

The com­pa­ny has expand­ed now into the defence mar­ket and is col­lab­o­rat­ing with Drone Evo­lu­tion, a UK-based First Per­son View (FPV) and autonomous UAV deliv­ery com­pa­ny, “to deliv­er trans­for­ma­tive defence capa­bil­i­ties for mod­ern war­fare,” reports a press release.

This part­ner­ship intro­duces the DBx-A1 which is to be launched this year: “A UAV logis­tics and launch sys­tem designed to enable rapid, secure and scal­able deploy­ment of mis­sion-crit­i­cal drones in con­test­ed envi­ron­ments,” explains the release. “The DBx-A1 sup­ports both reusable and one-way strike UAVs, stream­lin­ing oper­a­tions for small-unit tac­tics and the­atre-wide mis­sions.”

It con­tin­ues, “By inte­grat­ing launch, charg­ing, main­te­nance, repair and mis­sion coor­di­na­tion into a mobile plat­form, the sys­tem min­imis­es per­son­nel expo­sure, accel­er­ates oper­a­tional tem­po and ensures dom­i­nance in UAV-dri­ven war­fare.”

DBx-A1

Angus Ben­son-Blair, for­mer British Army Major, now Board Advi­sor at Urban-Air Port, com­ment­ed, “Mass UAV deploy­ment in high-threat envi­ron­ments is logis­ti­cal­ly com­plex and expos­es war fight­ers to risk. The DBx-A1 deliv­ers secure, rapid and repeat­able launch capa­bil­i­ties, ensur­ing mis­sion suc­cess in dynam­ic bat­tle spaces.”

Cur­rent logis­tics have dif­fi­cul­ty scal­ing UAV oper­a­tions, lead­ing to delays and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, says the report. UAP’s DBx-A1 address­es these chal­lenges with a mobile, inte­grat­ed plat­form that trans­forms chaot­ic for­ward deploy­ments into pre­cise, effi­cient oper­a­tions. Com­pa­ra­ble to upgrad­ing from a dirt airstrip to a state-of-the-art air­base, it reduces launch times, enhances mis­sion reli­a­bil­i­ty and scales seam­less­ly across oper­a­tional scope and ter­rain.

Key Fea­tures of the DBx-A1

: Mobile For­ward Oper­at­ing Bases (FOBs) - Enables covert, rapid UAV launch­es from front­line posi­tions.

: Inte­grat­ed Oper­a­tions - Com­bines launch, charg­ing, MRO and mis­sion coor­di­na­tion for autonomous and FPV UAVs.

: Scal­able Design — Sup­ports small squads to large-scale oper­a­tions, adapt­able to glob­al defence needs.

: Stealth and Secu­ri­ty — Min­imis­es detec­tion and coun­ters jamming/hacking threats for ISR and strike mis­sions.

: Agnos­tic plat­form - Scal­able to sup­port a wide array of UAVs and com­pat­i­ble with any stan­dard Pal­letised Load Sys­tem vehi­cle.

Andrea Wu, CEO of Urban-Air Port, remarked, “The DBx-A1 clos­es crit­i­cal gaps in UAV logis­tics, deliv­er­ing a deci­sive edge through secure, scal­able and covert drone swarm oper­a­tions for ISR and strike mis­sions. Part­ner­ing with Drone Evo­lu­tion, we’re inte­grat­ing cut­ting-edge UAV and logis­tics solu­tions that rede­fine defence capa­bil­i­ties, empow­er­ing forces to dom­i­nate evolv­ing bat­tle spaces with pre­ci­sion and speed.”

The Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) between UAP and Drone Evo­lu­tion will help both com­pa­nies’ abil­i­ty to scale their inno­v­a­tive prod­ucts and ser­vices through inte­grat­ed, cut­ting-edge capa­bil­i­ties. UAP seeks to cement its posi­tion as a new leader in UAV logis­tics infra­struc­ture for defence appli­ca­tions.

The release con­tin­ues, “As UAV dom­i­nance becomes cen­tral to mil­i­tary suc­cess, the UAP-Drone Evo­lu­tion part­ner­ship posi­tions both com­pa­nies to export British inno­va­tion world­wide.  The DBx-A1 enhances sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness, pre­ci­sion strikes, and force pro­tec­tion, coun­ter­ing the rapid evo­lu­tion of aer­i­al threats.  This col­lab­o­ra­tion under­scores a com­mit­ment to build­ing safer, more resilient defence ecosys­tems through advanced tech­nol­o­gy.”

Toby Town­row, Founder and Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Direc­tor at Drone Evo­lu­tion, said, “Our col­lab­o­ra­tion with UAP stream­lines autonomous and FPV UAV deploy­ment, reduc­ing risk and enhanc­ing oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy. By inte­grat­ing our SCIMITAR and RUNNER sys­tems with the DBx-A1, we’re deliv­er­ing cut­ting-edge solu­tions that strength­en glob­al secu­ri­ty, con­sis­tent with our mis­sion to secure the sup­ply chain for UAVs by build­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing in the UK.

The com­pa­ny designs advanced FPV and autonomous UAVs, includ­ing the SCIMITAR, SENTINEL and RUNNER sys­tems, opti­mised for defence, logis­tics, and crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture pro­tec­tion.

Run­ner, Sen­tinel and Nav­i­ga­tor UAVs

Mean­while, UAP’s patent­ed ver­ti­port tech­nol­o­gy deliv­ers ultra-com­pact, high-capac­i­ty infra­struc­ture, trans­form­ing cities into con­nect­ed, clean­er hubs for a green eco­nom­ic future. Its solu­tions are opti­mised for elec­tric and hybrid VTOL air­craft, ensur­ing safer, qui­eter, and more sus­tain­able oper­a­tions com­pared to com­peti­tors.

Its “Ver­ti­cal Air­field” tech­nol­o­gy com­pacts con­ven­tion­al air­fields, enabling safe elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing at height, akin to an air­craft car­ri­er. 

Urban-Air Port’s ver­ti­ports are 80 per­cent small­er than alter­na­tives, fea­tur­ing mod­u­lar designs for scal­able expan­sion, max­imised eVTOL through­put, and inte­grat­ed ener­gy stor­age for supe­ri­or per­for­mance and pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence.

Based in Caer­philly, South Wales, Drone Evo­lu­tion was found­ed in 2018 and is deploy­ing its prod­ucts and ser­vices across var­i­ous sec­tors includ­ing con­struc­tion, util­i­ties and defence, and is empha­sis­ing safe­ty, effi­cien­cy and extend­ed oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ties.  

Their prod­uct range includes a num­ber of pre­mi­um FPV UAVs under the SCIMITAR ban­ner: NAVIGATOR, a UK designed and built flight con­troller and Elec­tron­ic Speed Con­troller stack for FPVs; RUNNER, an autonomous last-mile resup­ply drone car­ry­ing pay­load of 5kg over 20km or 1kg over 60km; and SENTINEL a teth­ered quad­copter for Intel­li­gence, Recon­nais­sance and Sur­veil­lance ISR.

For more infor­ma­tion

www.urbanairport.com

dronevolution.com 

(Images: UAP)

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