AN UNMANNED VTOL GROUND SURVEILLANCE VEHICLE

摘要

An unmanned arerial vehicle (UAV) has a toroidal fuselage and a rotor assembly having a pair of counter-rotating rotors secured in fixed coaxial combination with the toroidal fuselage to provide a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capability for the UAV. One embodiment of the VTOL UAV is especially configured for ground surveillance missions by the inclusion of an externally mounted, remotely controllable stowable sensor subsystem (250) that provides an azimuthal scanning capability and a predetermined elevation/depression scanning capability to accomplish the ground surveillance mission and a foldable landing gear subsystem (300) to facilitate landing of the VTOL UAV at unprepared ground surveillance sites. The foldable landing gear subsystem includes a plurality of legs (302), one end of each leg being detachably secured in combination with the toroidal fuselage, a foot that includes a pad member (312) pivotally attached to the other end of each leg, and a non-structural hinge secured to each leg and the toroidal fuselage. The non-structural hinges (306) provide the capability to fold the landing gear subsystem to a stowage configuration wherein each leg, pivoting foot combination is folded within the envelope of the toroidal fuselage.