The PD 100 Black Hornet Nano is a helicopter Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), weighing only 18 grams (.04 lbs) made by Prox Dynamics in Norway. It has been used by the British military since 2013 in Afghanistan. The tiny UAS is capable of delivering live video and still images to operators via its handheld portable ground station. In 2014, the U.S. Army evaluated the Black Hornet under its initiative to acquire an intelligence gathering UAS that could fit in a soldier’s pocket, so called the Cargo Pocket-Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (CP-ISR). The U.S. Army U.S. Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center made some requests for changes to the system, including the ability to see at night, fly indoors, and conform to the Army’s Digital Data Link (DDL) UAS communications standard. In late 2014, Prox Dynamics was scheduled to perform a demonstration of the Black Hornet Version 2 (v2)that incorporates these enhanced capabilities. The author will assume, for the sake of deduction, that the Black Hornet v2 successfully met those standards.
The aim of this paper is to identify the methods, procedures, and protocols that are used to collect, transfer and store imagery on the Black Hornet UAS. Because the Black Hornet is a new, proprietary system and information about it is protected by Norwegian export controls, the exact details of the Black Hornet UAS’s functionality are not public information. Nevertheless, the author will utilize all available information and make educated deductions to arrive at the most probable description of the systems.
The first version of the Black Hornet had three electro-optical (EO) cameras- one facing forward, one facing down, and another facing 45 degrees down from the forward direction. The v2 is said to have incorporated thermal InfraRed (IR). Small, 1 gram EO cameras, like those used on cell phones, are ubiquitous and were likely used in the Black Hornet. These types of cameras require 75 milliAmps and produce 720 x 480 resolution. The IR camera selected was most likely the Flir Lepton, a newly-developed long wave infrared sensor. The Lepton requires 150 milliAmps and produces 80 x 60 resolution.
The Black Hornet initially utilized a digital data link, but the waveform and protocol was not specified. The v2 will utilize the U.S. Army Digital Data Link (DDL) protocol, which is defined as LAW Tactical 802.3. It utilizes the L- and S-bands, which spans from 1 to 4 GigaHertz. Existing DDL radios are too large and/or heavy to be carried by the Black Hornet, thus Prox Dynamics will have to either custom engineer a radio and/or increase the overall size of the Black Hornet v2. Compression of the videos and images could take place in any file format, but are likely JPEG and MPEG*.
Specification sheets for the Black Hornet advertise that the ground station can store the video and images from over six flights. The most taxing sensor for storage is the EO camera running at 30 frames per second. If we assume that the data link throughput is 3.7 Megabits per second, which is typical for an off-the-shelf DDL radio, and the MPEG2 compression format is used, this results in 555 megabytes per flight. Multiplied by six, we know that the ground station is capable of storing at least 3.33 Gigabytes of imagery. Digital stills from the EO camera will be negligibly small, at just 42 kilobytes.
*Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) and Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
References:
Sisto, J. (2014). Army Researchers Develop Cargo Pocket ISR. Defense AT&L: September-October 2014
MICRO Secure Digital Data Link - MICRO SDDL. (2012). San Diego: L-3 Southern California Microwave. Retrieved from: http://www2.l-3com.com/scm/pdf/datasheets/SCMML628_Rev%20B.pdf
Prox Dynamics Launches Midlife Upgrade Of PD-100 Black Hornet PRS. (2014). Defence Procurement International - Summer 2014. Retrieved from: http://www.proxdynamics.com/backgrounds/9389a8cd-07f6-4a48-b0a8-91a4af465863.pdf
PD-100 Black Hornet PRS System. (2012). Product brochure, Prox Dynamics. Retrieved from: http://www.marlboroughcomms.com/media/9427/black-hornet-uas.pdf
Personal Reconnaissance System: PD-100 Black Hornet. (2014). Product Brochure, Prox Dynamics. Retrieved from: http://adsinc.com/download/sell_sheets/Prox%20Dynamics%20PD-100%20Sell%20Sheet.pdf
PD-100 Black Hornet PRS: Your Personal Reconnaissance System. (2013). Product Brochure, Prox Dynamics. Retrieved from: http://www.marlboroughcomms.com/media/13459/UAS-Black-Hornet-v2.pdf
1 Gram PAL Camera. (n.d.) Product details, FPV Hobby.com. Retrieved from: http://www.fpvhobby.com/63-1-gram-nano-camera-480tvl.html
FLIR LEPTON® Long Wave Infrared (LWIR) Datasheet. (2014). FLIR Systems, Inc. Retrieved from: http://www.flir.com/cores/display/?id=62648
Nano Digital Data Link. (2014). Product brochure, Microhard Systems, Inc. Retrieved from: http://www.microhardcorp.com/brochures/Nano.DDL.Brochure.Rev.1.7.pdf
Video Space Calculator. (2015). Online tool, Digital Rebellion, LLC. Retrieved from: http://www.digitalrebellion.com/webapps/video_calc.html
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