Miniature UAV - Man-portable UAVs - NRL "Dragon Eye", "Swallow" and "Finder"

NRL "Dragon Eye", "Swallow" and "Finder"

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has developed a man-portable UAV of roughly the same size as the AeroVironment Raven, named the RQ-14 Dragon Eye (no relationship to the BAI Aerosystems Dragon). The Dragon Eye is a tailless design with a rectangular wing and twin props. It is designed to fit into a backpack, with a weight of 2.25 kilograms (5 pounds) and a span of 1.14 meters (3 feet 9 inches). It can be launched by hand or bungee slingshot and has a GPS-INS-based waypoint navigation system.

One of the interesting features is that the operator monitors Dragon Eye operation through "video goggles" connected to a laptop computer. The control system weighs about 5.4 kilograms (12 pounds). The Dragon Eye's endurance is an hour. The production contract for Dragon Eye was awarded to AeroVironment in 2003, and over 1000 aircraft were built before the Marines switched over to the RQ-11B Raven B for the remainder of the Dragon Eye production contract.

The NRL has also built at least two other small UAVs. The Swallow is of more conventional configuration than the Dragon Eye, roughly comparable to the AeroVironment Pointer, with long sailplane wings and a tail-mounted propeller. Details are unclear, but it has been used in NRL experiments to develop anti-sniper sensors for base security applications.

The Finder (Flight Inserted Detector Expandable for Reconnaissance), with a weight of 26 kilograms (57 pounds), can carry a small imager, or an atmospheric sampling sensor to check for radiological / chemical / biological contaminants, and other sensor payloads are being considered. Other details of the Finder are unclear.

The Finder has been evaluated as a payload for the Predator UAV, with one Finder carried under each wing, acting as a parasite UAV like the Raytheon SilentEyes. Initial flight tests of the Finder with the Predator were performed in the summer of 2002.