With a sound like a petrol lawnmower at top revs, Shield AI’s V-Bat drone rises vertically from a field in country NSW, swings over into level flight then completes a wide circuit, its sensor depicting the landscape below in fine detail.
At the end of its flight, V-Bat returns to the vertical, landing unerringly on the same spot from whence it departed. Both takeoff and landing can be achieved without engagement of a human operator.
This is a capability potentially of interest to the Australian Defence Force and especially the Navy which now relies on the Insitu Pacific Integrator for its embarked UAS capability.
Integrator is a fixed wing drone of long endurance but requires a catapult for launch, and a capture system for recovery.
Shield AI demonstrated V-Bat to a diverse audience of 50 Australian and international guests at a property on the NSW southern highlands over two days in late October.
Because V-Bat is a Group 3 drone weighing 76 kilograms and able to fly up to 18,000 feet, flight operations even in remote areas require Civil Aviation Safety Authority approval, a process managed by transport company Toll and its uncrewed systems division.
Shield AI director of business development for South-East Asia, Jack Walker, said V-Bat’s automatic takeoff and landing capability was a big improvement to the platform’s capabilities, allowing it to operate from the back of a ship.
He said V-Bat was very well suited to maritime operations.
“The changes made to the platform from the 5.1 to the 5.3 really suit the maritime domain,” he said.
“The automatic launch and recovery, the shift to the heavy fuel engine, the increase in payload and being able to use C-band and satcom, it does suit a maritime environment. It means a ship can see further but more importantly it can stay further from harm’s way.
“It has those flight characteristics of a fixed wing plane that lets you go 55 knots and cruise for 12 plus hours in optimum conditions and maximise the payload.”
Just under 200 V-Bats are now operating around the world, with the US Coast Guard, US Marine expeditionary units, Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force and others. Notably, V-Bats have been used by Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia.
V-Bat can carry a range of payloads including electronic warfare, synthetic aperture radar and day and night camera. Shield AI doesn’t provide an armed capability, though they could if partners were interested.
“For now we predominantly see it performing ISR, targeting, EW and maritime domain awareness and most importantly operations in denied and degraded environments,” Walker said.
Though based in San Diego, California, Shield AI has a strong Australian connection through its acquisition of Melbourne-based Sentient Vision Systems in April 2024.
Shield AI was founded in 2015 by former US Navy SEAL Brandon Tseng, and his brother Ryan, starting out essentially as a garage company with funding of US $100,000 (approx. A $142,410) from friends and family. It’s now worth much more.
Sentient Vision’s Australian-developed Vidar has now been integrated to V-Bat as a standard option.
Vidar is a passive wide area EO/IR surveillance system able to detect image pixel anomalies, cueing the onboard camera for closer inspection. That anomaly could be a camouflaged tank or a distant floating crewmember from a sunken ship.
For the demonstration program, Shield AI gained approval for flying beyond line of sight, as well as day and night operations.
The approval also allows flight up to 4500 feet and as far away as RAAF Richmond west of Sydney, though they haven’t gone that far.
“The platform is being recognised across the globe through civil and defence aviation authorities as something that is able to operate in airspace that is operating other platforms,” Walker said.
Shield AI may be heading into the big time with X-Bat, one of the candidates for the US collaborative combat aircraft program.
X-Bat is a vertical takeoff and landing uncrewed jet aircraft, able to carry the same weapons as a F-35 with a combat radius of 1000 nautical miles. The aircraft may conduct its first fight later this year.