UAV communications relay sets flight endurance record

A solar-powered unmanned aircraft, funded jointly by the U.K. Ministry of Defence and U.S. Defense Department, recently set an unofficial world endurance record for a flight by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – and demonstrated the ability to provide a battlefield communications relay, linking units more than 300 miles apart.

The Zephyr UAV, developed by QinetiQ, stayed aloft, non-stop, for 82 hours and 37 minutes, exceeding the current world record for unmanned flight, which is 30 hours and 24 minutes, set by General Atomics' Global Hawk in 2001. The flight trial took place at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. The UAV was flown on autopilot and via satellite communications to a maximum altitude of more than 60,000 feet.

The communications relay system on Zephyr was based on Thales’s AN/PRC-148 Joint Tactical Radio System Enhanced Multiband Inter/Intra Team Radios (JEM), providing a communications link over Single Channel Ground and Radio Airborne System (SINCGARS). The system was built from four AN/PRC-148 JEM radios, allowing it to do two simultaneous retransmissions. The total relay system weighed less than five pounds including radios, retransmission cables and antennas.

Zephyr is part of a U.K./U.S. Joint Capability Technology Demonstration program, which is designed to rapidly field urgently-needed technologies, e.g., battlefield communications and reconnaissance, to U.S. warfighters in the field.