Guardian it is the first Italian solar-powered “spy-drone” capable of flying silently for long-range surveillance, control and intelligence missions.
Guardian, the Made in Italy “spy drone”.
Made by specialized companies Vector Robotics of Treviso and NPC of Imola, this drone looks like a small airplane and, thanks to the photovoltaic cells placed on the wings, during the day it can fly autonomously without stopping for over 8 hours.
On board mounts a sophisticated ultra HD camera with digital transmission and can be employed in civil and military field for many activities such as: police and intelligence investigations, surveillance of the territory and sensitive sites; surveillance of borders and coastal areas; rescue.
Guardian was built on the experience gained by the two companies for the solar drone project for fire detection “FireHound Zero”, introduced on the market in 2022.
The design consists of a construction in expanded propylenewhich makes it light, robust and resistant, and of very small dimensions: a length of 53 centimeters and a wingspan of 146 centimeters, with an area of about 0.4 square meters of photovoltaic cells.
How the Guardian spy drone works
The drone is hand launched by a single operator and can fly at a maximum operating altitude of 5 kilometers and at a cruising speed of approximately 40 kilometers per hour. It mounts various camera options, such as full-HD fixed and 4K ultra-HD Starlight with 6x digital zoom stabilized on three axes, arriving at the very interesting EO + IR camera with auto-tracking, 40x zoom (including 20x optical) in the visible frequency and 4x in the infrared.
It also has a digital transmission system that ensures the reception of an interference-free signalallowing the collected images to be sent to the ground station, but it is also equipped with an SD memory card to record the data and then transfer them to other devices after landing.
In the basic version, the range is 10 kilometers and it is capable of flying with external temperatures between -10 and +45 degrees Celsius and with winds up to 25 knots.
“The ‘Guardian’ flight testing activities have just concluded with excellent results, even with reduced sunlight and adverse weather conditions,” he said. Gabriele Giorgini, Operations Director of Vector Robotics.
“This vehicle represents a real revolution in the simplification and optimization of missions in many operational scenarios and is a highly effective solution for the needs of the armed forces, police bodies, rescue and civil protection organizations and for all other realities active in the security sector.
The ‘Guardian’ will be a very useful tool in the hands of these professionals and will certainly give them a greater chance of success than traditional means, thanks above all to its special characteristics of ease of use, absolute silence, long flight duration and sophisticated shooting and video transmission”.
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