dimensions of 70 x 33 x 130 mm, and can function down to depths of 1000 m. Rather than an oil-filled design, the actuator is instead designed to continue functioning in the event of water breaching and entirely flooding its housing, which the company estimates will bring its cost down to less than half that of competitor units. Both new servos are expected to become available by October 2025, and will be manufactured in quantities to maintain shelf stock for fast, short-notice deliveries. Cobra Aero is continuing development of its Jetfire turbulent jet ignition technology, aimed at enabling sparkignited two-stroke engines to achieve the thermal and fuel efficiencies of a diesel engine, while retaining high power densities. “It combines a loop-scavenged two-stroke architecture, with an active pre-chamber ignition system that helps scavenge the pre-chamber with a little bit of air, and as the combustion volume expands, it exhausts out of the pre-chamber as jets into the main cylinder, igniting the rest of the main chamber,” said Sean Hilbert. This enables engines to run very lean in their main chamber, while better utilising all the contents of the cylinder, including insufficiently mixed pockets of fuel and air, and nearly inert exhaust gases from the previous combustion cycle. Overall, the result is improved power density and power efficiency over conventional ignition approaches, and around 40-45% thermal efficiency. “The system achieves those levels of thermal efficiency with a wide range of fuels, including gasoline, heavy fuels, pyrolysis oils and hydrogen,” Hilbert continued. “Hydrogen’s an especially interesting usecase, because Jetfire gives similar thermal efficiencies with hydrogen as a PEM fuel cell does, but without the degradation, and the power goes directly into a shaft without the efficiency losses of a battery, motor controller and electric motor.” First rounds of testing data have shown that Jetfire increases thermal efficiencies in spark-ignited engines by around 40% during part-load operations (such as loitering), validating that flight times or carrying capacities could be increased by 40% through use of the technology. “And between now and the end of the year, we’ll be diving into heavy-fuel tests; the system should enhance coldstarting and air utilisation, so there’s a lot of interesting hypotheses we’ll be working to prove-out over the next six months,” Hilbert added. Trimble Applanix is continuing to expand access to its Trimble CenterPoint RTX correction service for GNSS, across both its APX product line of GNSS-inertial systems and the UAV space in general. “While CenterPoint RTX has been a staple in the ag, construction, survey and geospatial industries, we’re seeing growing demand for its application in UAV-based mapping, guidance and control as drones extend beyond visual line of sight operations,” said Trimble Applanix’s Joe Hutton. “The Trimble APX RTX GNSS/INS is designed for mapping payloads, such as Lidar and cameras. It includes subscriptions for both real-time CenterPoint RTX and post-processing, providing high-accuracy positioning and orientation data for generating map products.” Meanwhile, the Trimble PX-1 RTX GNSS/INS is engineered for accurate and precise guidance and control, especially for UAVs taking-off and landing in confined spaces. It leverages CenterPoint RTX to provide robust centimetre-level real-time position 105 Uncrewed Systems Technology | August/September 2025 AUVSI Xponential part one | Show report Hitec’s SU33BL-CAN is its first underwater servo actuator, which can function down to depths of 1000 m Cobra Aero is continuing optimisations of its Jetfire turbulent ignition system, and will engage in heavy-fuel tests by the close of 2025
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