CyPhy Ships Tethered Drones to U.S. Army

CyPhy Works has announced the dispatch of another shipment of their PARC (Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications) system to the U.S. Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF). The units are slated for use overseas. The teathered drone system addresses the need for a persistent ‘eye-in-the-sky’ by flying for days at a time.

Current military UAV hardware is known to be susceptible to jamming and electrical interference, however PARC cannot be jammed or spoofed. It also has the ability to perform long-endurance flights lasting hundreds of hours rather than ones measured in minutes currently offered by existing hardware. The tether serves as PARC’s high-power conduit. Communications and video also flow over its patented Kevlar-strengthened micro-filament tether.

The current version of the PARC is designed to meet military requirements in the field for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and Force Protection (FP). The PARC began being deployed shortly after successfully passing U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) testing in 2015.

Commercial applications for the PARC system include facility and event security, deploying communications equipment, and inspection.

Earlier this year CyPhy Works teamed up with the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) to provide situational awareness over the runners’ village and the starting area of the 2017 Boston Marathon. Flying two Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications (PARC™) drones non-stop from sunrise until the final runners crossed the start line in Hopkinton, Mass. This was the first-time drones flew over the historic race, providing real-time video to MEMA’s emergency operations centers (EOCs). These EOCs served as hubs for local, state and Federal agencies to share data feeds and coordinate operations for crowd monitoring and identification of potential threats; and as bases from which response resources were dispatched.

CyPhy Works is the leading tethered drone company developing flying robots for large industries such as defense, security, telecommunications, construction, oil & gas, law enforcement, and mining.

Source: cyphyworks.com