December 8th - Bird's Eye View

Desert Hawk Mini UAV

Originally made to exploit the "Turrets on Fixed wing Planes" system we developed the Desert Hawk Mini UAV is pretty basic. Its small enough to be launched by hand, its made from polystyrene and carries a small camera and microwave control relay for communication.

Its controlled from a simple laptop based "Rover" Ground Control Station by a single operator. Its used for force protection, convoy support and covert surveillance in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The module shown is the oldest of the designs. Lockheed Martin have refined the system significantly producing 3 other versions each with progressively more capability and endurance.

Anyone that has tried to make mini UAV's in ArmA knows that getting the flight model to work is a nightmare. Because the geometry and mass distribution are so small the flight model tends towards unstable and unpredictable stalling and AI behaviour. Normally you are left with two choices:

- Live with the unstable flight model
- Make the geometry bigger to get some relative stability. This has the drawback of invisible parts of the UAV hitting nearby objects.

We're developing a system that dynamically alters the mass distribution allowing a more stable flight model without the object collision issues. Its in the early stages but it may pave the way for more Mini and Micro UAVs ingame. Add to that the Turret system, a new navigation and control GUI it should provide a new level of realism for UAV's within ArmA.