110 Show report | AUVSI Xponential part one LW20/C, SF30D, SF30/C, SF45/B and GRF-series gimbal rangefinders – with DroneCAN networks onboard UAVs. “DroneCAN is built on the robust and reliable CAN bus protocol,” said Mohit Morar of LightWare. “By supporting the standard DroneCAN message and instruction set, our adapter allows engineers to integrate LightWare sensors quickly, assigning nodes and identifying devices on the network within minutes. This dramatically reduces development time and speeds up deployment.” The adapter is fully compatible with popular flight controllers such as ArduPilot and PX4, both of which offer native DroneCAN support. As part of its design philosophy, LightWare has aimed to design the adapter as ultracompact (weighing 3.14 g) and energyefficient (consuming 0.075 W) for to suitability in size- and power-constrained UAV applications. uAvionix brought three new product announcements for aviation safety, first of which was skyAlert, a wearable (belt or shoulder-worn as standard) dualband ADS-B receiver and audible alerter, designed for warning UAS operators when other aircraft enter the vicinity of their own UAVs and conserving operator awareness in the meantime. “If an operator doesn’t want to constantly track their UAV’s position in their GCS, or wants to focus on other work, they can configure skyAlert for their preferred ‘alert zone’, maybe a 1 km radius and 100 m altitude cylindrical geofence around the UAV, and skyAlert will blast an alarm to tell them to look at their map – no app or subscription required,” said Christian Ramsey of uAvionix. “Rather than connect to the GCS directly, it has a GDL90 and a wi-fi interface to connect with the user’s optional Electronic Flight Bag, thereby reflecting information from the map in real time, even if the operator has moved a short distance away from it.” The company has also expanded the capabilities of its muLTElink C2 module, which was developed to analyse and adjudicate among multiple integrated data links, to select the best at any given moment. Previously, the system was designed to only use uAvionix radios and transmit C2 data; however, based on extensive customer feedback, muLTElink can now also transmit payload data (such as wide-area EO/IR maps or full motion video) and use third-party radios. Lastly, the company unveiled Trakr, a highly SWaP-optimised transmitter for broadcasting UAVs’ real-time positional data to uAvionix’s FlightLine cloud-based platform for detailed, private display of air traffic information. “Trakr enables users to track their UAVs privately – unlike ADS-B that shares information publicly – and to bring their private operating data into the same common operating picture with public ADS-B data, to really maximise operators and allow customers to get full situational awareness from one complete display in FlightLine,” Ramsey added. While Trakr installs onboard the UAV as a standalone device (chargeable with USB-C), uAvionix’s TrakrStation and TrakrStationLTE are the ground-side portion of the system; of those two, the former connects to a network using a Power Over Ethernet interface, while the latter functions using LTE. “Imagine something like widearea utility inspections, with multiple contractors and managers in addition to the flight operations team – Trakr and FlightLine enable everybody to see where everything is at every step of the way,” Ramsey concluded. We previously featured Wave Engine’s J-1 pulse jet engine in Issue 58 (Oct/ Nov 2024). Since then, the company has updated the engine in a few key technical respects. “For one, we’ve been working to improve the operational ease with which the engine can be started in cold weather. With some minor hardware updates, we can make start-ups quick and consistent regardless of the August/September 2025 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Scorpion Power System’s new integrated motor pods feature optimised designs and magnetics, as well as a proprietary FOC algorithm LightWare’s DroneCAN adapter enables plug-and-play connectivity for the full range of LightWare sensors with DroneCAN networks onboard uncrewed aerial vehicles
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