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With the development of unmanned combat systems, carrier-based UAVs that can be used on surface ships have become a frontier hotspot in the development of UAVs. Compared with land UAVs, the shipboard environment has its special characteristics: the shipboard space is relatively narrow, and there are strict restrictions on the use and take-off and landing of aircraft. The unmanned carrier-based helicopter with low requirements for take-off and landing space and small area can just meet this requirement; However, unmanned helicopters also have obvious shortcomings, such as slow flight speed, short air retention time, and small combat radius, which is obviously not enough for carrier-based platforms that require UAVs to have a large radius of use. So, how to solve this dilemma? The related company has developed a fixed-wing UAV called "Suzaku", which can not only achieve vertical take-off and landing through seated take-off, but also carry out normal level flight of fixed-wing aircraft through flight attitude conversion, which effectively solves the contradiction between the flight performance of carrier-based UAV and take-off and landing space.
"Suzaku" vertical take-off and landing fixed-wing UAV
Seated take-off and landing design
"Suzaku" new carrier-based UAV using the seated take-off and landing design, is a popular carrier-based aircraft vertical take-off and landing technology in the 50s of the last century, although as a technical exploration and attempt, in that year failed to achieve large-scale application, but for later generations to provide a feasible idea. The seated design of the "Suzaku" UAV is very simple, that is, a fixed-wing aircraft is reversed 90 degrees from the horizontal state, so that its head is up, the tail is down, and the wings and body are perpendicular to the ground. The landing gear wheels of a seated aircraft are moved from the belly of the fuselage and under the wing to the trailing edge of the wing. In such a seated aircraft, the nose leaves the ground or deck vertically upwards during takeoff, and when it rises to a certain altitude, the nose is turned 90°. Transition to the normal horizontal flight state of a fixed-wing aircraft. When the plane needs to land, it will be converted to a vertical state to land. The advantage of the seated take-off and landing design is that the helicopter vertical take-off and landing mode is organically combined with the fixed-wing aircraft, which can not only take off and land vertically, but also ensure that the aircraft still has the superior flight performance of fixed-wing aircraft.
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It is reported that the "Suzaku" UAV is suitable for shipborne environments, adopts fixed-wing mode for cruise, has vertical take-off and landing capabilities, and has a long endurance (more than 10 hours) and a large range (flight distance of hundreds to thousands of kilometers). It uses automated landing technology, which can automatically take off and land vertically in the limited space of the destroyer/frigate ship's shipboard deck; The landing gear also uses adaptive technology, which can reduce the impact during landing, effectively maintain the vertical attitude of the aircraft, and prevent it from lodging.
It is worth noting that the tail of the "Suzaku" UAV is also provided with two small tails perpendicular to the main wing, on the one hand, the tail can ensure the heading stability of the aircraft when flying level, on the other hand, two landing gears are also arranged on the trailing edge of the tail, and the two landing gear wheels on the main wing form a "cross-shaped" structure to ensure the stability of the aircraft's attitude when landing vertically.
Close-up of the coaxial twin-rotor propulsion unit of the "Suzaku" UAV
The coaxial dual-rotor layout realizes the large-scale UAV
The "Suzaku" UAV has a very interesting feature, that is, the rally propeller used by its head to power the aircraft, abandons the conventional single propeller design, and instead adopts a "coaxial twin-rotor" design similar to the "Snail" series of carrier-based helicopters of the Russian Kamov Design Bureau. After all, the domestic Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute and Xi'an Aisheng Technology Group Corporation (UAV Research Institute of Northwestern Polytechnical University) also have similar seated carrier-based UAV products, but they both use conventional single-propeller design.
It is reported that the use of coaxial twin-rotor layout is precisely the characteristics and competitive advantages of the UAV, such a design, intended to achieve large-scale UAV. After technical research, it was found that a single propeller is ideal for small seated UAVs with an empty weight of tens of kilograms, but if the UAV weight class is larger, the single propeller pull is a problem. The counter-rotating coaxial twin-rotor propeller is much more tensile than the other. At present, it is a 50-kilogram product under research and testing, and plans to develop a large vertical take-off and landing UAV with a maximum take-off weight of 2 tons in the future, so the coaxial twin-rotor layout is a very suitable design.
The "Suzaku" UAV is integrated and has a wide range of uses
It is integrated and has a wide range of uses
On the other side of the "Suzaku" UAV, it can be seen that in addition to the vertical spherical photoelectric reconnaissance turret under the belly, there are also two pylons on the outside of its wings near the wingtips, because the "Suzaku" UAV is positioned as a "reconnaissance and fighting" carrier-based UAV, which is carried by surface ships and has intelligence and surveillance. Reconnaissance and strike capabilities, which can continue to cruise in the airspace near the fleet, provide the fleet with continuous ISR (intelligence. surveillance and reconnaissance) services, which can also be mounted with small airborne weapons to combat small mobile targets such as missile boats and increase the attack effectiveness of the fleet.
It used to be a classic "asymmetrical" method of warfare for small missile speedboats carrying anti-ship missiles to attack large surface ship formations through long-range sneak attacks, but with such a ship-borne unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as the "Suzaku," it is much more difficult for missile speedboats to "ambush" and sneak attack surface ship formations. It can be a sharp weapon against missile boats.
The "Suzaku" UAV on the model of the domestic "China Aegis" destroyer No. 170
epilogue
At present, the "Suzaku" carrier-based UAV has begun to be tested on military ships, and the warship model is used to demonstrate the application prospects and capabilities of the "Suzaku" - it can use the helicopter deck of the destroyer to take off and land. The "Suzaku" UAV is currently in the test and follow-up research and development stage, and the prototype has carried out preliminary land take-off and landing tests. Represented by it, the domestic high-performance, new-concept carrier-based UAV is booming, and has gradually grown into a "new quality combat effectiveness", injecting more new technologies and new vitality into the construction of a strong navy, adding new strength.