The Leica Aibot AX20 has been put through its paces by the British military

The Ministry of Defence has extensively tested the Leica AX20 Aibot aerial surveying copter, via a specialist unit which oversees the development and innovation of cutting-edge remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPASs).

“This was an unusual one for us because it was the first survey drone my team had looked at – but it came through the V&V process and is now listed on MODNET. Now it’s up to each of the armed forces to decide how they can make the best use of the AX20’s survey capabilities.”
- AX20 V＆V测试的mod引线

The first part of the test involved an MOD Type Airworthiness Authority (TAA) audit at Leica Geosystems’ production facilities in Switzerland. This assessed the UAV’s manufacture and the integration of its sensor technology, resulting in a detailed review.

The second part was a week-long ‘validation and verification’ (V&V) exercise, a physical trial which took place at an MOD airbase in the UK. Leica Geosystems sent a specialist team, including a specialist pilot from the company’s Swiss headquarters, to work alongside an experimental unit from the MOD.

The Leica AX20 Aibot is now listed in the MOD’s RPAS database, which is available to wider MOD departments (including the Royal Navy, the British Army, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Marines) for independent comparison/assessment against requirements as well as for procurement.

Military applications include river and land reconnaissance (RECCEing), land surveying, defence accident investigation, defence post-crash management, military air accident investigation, and high-resolution photography, among others.

测试发现，AX20仅需3分34秒即可设置，而2分37秒才能拆除。它超过了其规定的“无效载荷无效的最大耐力”（26分钟而不是24分），并且以超过56公里的速度飞行。

“The AX20 Aibot flies very well – all basic functions operated to an excellent standard and it remained stable during gusts… The main feature is the ability to capture highly accurate surveys and 3D orthographics. A good aspect is how quickly the images are captured.”
-V＆V报告

According to the test lead for the MOD, the geo-fence test went well, in particular. The UAV is able to pre-empt the geo-fence in advance and adjust its speed accordingly (ie automatically slowing to a crawl before the boundary). The safety and security aspect concerns the likelihood and severity of the aircraft entering secure/segregated airspace or an unsafe area – for example, above a crowd of people.

Remote-piloted aircraft systems play an increasingly important role across all of Britain’s armed forces, from very small, commercially available drones which fit in a backpack via larger, exclusively military RPASs used for surveillance and intelligence-gathering through to large weaponised UAVs.

关于Leica Geosystems AX20

Leica Aibot SX智能航空测量解决方案通过完全集成的无人机调查工作流程捕获数字数据集。它使用无人机技术来捕获，处理，建模和分析从上方收集的数百万个数据点。它符合Leica在现实捕捉空间中的现有工具和技术，从上面完成了3D的图像，并根据需要提供可靠，准确的3D调查结果。该数据可以与其他调查技术（例如TPS，GPS和激光扫描）结合使用，以提供更多完整的信息。

The AX20 takes just minutes to survey even very large sites, enabling projects to be completed quickly and very cost-effectively with less human intervention. The modular design makes the AX20 easy to set up and deploy in minutes, and it can carry a range of sensor payloads.