Last week, T-Works, the Telangana government’s premier prototyping centre, has now successfully built and tested an autonomous hybrid unmanned aerial vehicle named AMRT25 (Airborne Medical Rapid Transport) that can travel up to a distance of 45 km. The model designed, developed and tested by T-Works can launch itself like a conventional drone and then fly forward like a conventional winged aircraft before making a landing vertically. Covering a distance of 45 km, it travelled for 33 minutes, as reported by the Indian Express. It comes with Vertical take-off and landing capability.
A hybrid UAV, the Airborne Medical Rapid Transport (AMRT25) has a wingspan of 2.5m. While its vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) motors are powered by a 10,000 mAh battery, the forward flight is powered by a 30 cc gasoline engine.
A press release from the office of the Minister for IT, Industries, and Commerce K T Rama Rao said the AMRT25 UAV, apart from the delivery of medical supplies, can be used for surveying, inspection, defence applications, surveillance and as a testbed for experimental payloads. “It completed over 30 test flights over a week passing various parameters such as maximum range, endurance, waypoint navigation and return-to-launch capabilities,” the statement said.
It consumes 75% less power than conventional multi-rotor drones. The engineers are now planning the next version of AMRT that can travel a distance of 100 km with a payload capacity of 3.5 kg. Apart from medical supplies delivery, the UAV can be used for surveying, inspection, defence applications, surveillance, and as a testbed for experimental payloads.
