On September 13, Autoflight demonstrated a 400kg large-scale vertical take-off and landing intelligent drone —V400 Albatross UAV. The drone has a wingspan of 9 meters, a height of 1.11 meters, a fuselage length of 6.67 meters, and a maximum take-off weight of 400 kg. The aircraft can take off and land vertically, and the maximum take-off altitude is 5000 meters. It also can be used in plateau areas. It has a cruising range of 300 kilometers with pure electric propulsion and 1,000 kilometers with hybrid power.
The V400 albatross UAV adopts a canard layout design, which is made of carbon fiber composite material. The fuselage is very light and the load capacity is excellent. The drone uses multi redundant control system, even if there is a power system failure can continue to fly. The drone is equipped with parachutes, which is almost impossible to crash. It is also equipped with ground penetrating radar, which can automatically select the appropriate terrain in the landing area. V400 albatross is also equipped with a highly intelligent control system, which can automatically plan the route and deliver materials back to the location hundreds of kilometers away according to instructions.
V400 albatross can be used for emergency material transportation and medical rescue, especially in the mountainous areas with inconvenient access can play a major role. In mountainous areas without roads, it may take hundreds of kilometers to transport materials by car, and the straight-line flight distance can be greatly shortened. The company also introduced that it takes 5 and a half hours for V400 to pass from Shanghai Jinshan to Zhoushan Dongji Island, and it only takes 1 hour for V400 to deliver materials. It takes 10 hours to send supplies from Ya’an, Sichuan to Litang County, while a straight flight only takes 1 hour and 45 minutes.
It is obvious that V400 albatross is very suitable for carrying out emergency material transportation mission in plateau area, which can become another important supplement in logistics supply. The longest endurance of 1000 km, 100 kg load capacity and vertical take-off and landing features are very bright, which can solve the urgent transportation task of materials in almost all areas where traffic is inconvenient. The same scene that is widely used is the island with border guard posts, which can be delivered by such UAVs, greatly increasing the convenience of life.