BMT has been granted a patent by the UK Intellectual Property Office for a concept called ‘BMT SPARROW’, an autonomous ‘air-ground payload transfer device’ for drone delivery applications.
“Our patent signals a new type of suspended robotic device: a device that takes over responsibility for the final moments of payload delivery, and better suited to challenging and sensitive environments," Phil Metcalfe, Regional Business Director for UK and Europe, said. "This small, highly-ruggedised robotic device could even autonomously collect packages as well as deliver them without the need for infrastructure on the ground.
“With the development of this autonomous and highly-versatile concept the project team have delivered a great example of how we actively apply our innovation to solve our customers’ complex problems.
“Further, we were super excited to participate in the British Army’s “Army Warfighting Experiment” (AWE) 23, with our rugged technology demonstrating the potential to feed into the army’s plans for a future 'digital backbone'.”
With SPARROW, BMT say they have addressed the inherent problem of large, noisy, and potentially hazardous delivery drones having to land or hover low over the payload destination, potentially close to people in unpredictable, sensitive and cluttered environments.
SPARROW is fundamentally different to winch systems commonly used in current trials for delivery drones, the company said. On a winch, the payload swinging at the bottom end of a line is raised or lowered by the cable drum attached to the underside of the fuselage, and moved horizontally by subtle movements of the drone above. This provides poor control of the payload, especially in windy conditions and limits the maximum height of the drone.
In comparison, SPARROW is located at the bottom end of the line with the payload with its own power, sensors and actuators; it has autonomous control of its descent using an internal drum, while making 'precise and immediate' horizontal adjustments to counter wind effects using 4 small, quiet pusher fans. SPARROW takes responsibility of the delivery, reportedly allowing the larger delivery drone to remain much higher at the destination, relatively unheard and unobtrusive at ground level.
Being much smaller than the drone and without the need for powerful, lift-generating rotors, BMT says SPARROW is perfect for safe, precise and quiet delivery in challenging or sensitive environments.
“During 30 years of working in aerospace, I have not seen anything like the surge in new aircraft, systems, and applications that has happened in the last five years," BMT's development partner, Dr Steve Wright from Wright Airborne Computing, commented.
"BMT SPARROW is a perfect example of this revolution, fuelled by a happy convergence of 21st century technologies harnessed together by computers and software that engineers like me could only dream about 30 years ago.”