UAS: Dragon Eye

Dragon Eye, the choice of the U.S. Marine Corps, is a fully autonomous, back-packable, bungee launched UAS designed to provide “over-the-next-hill” tactical reconnaissance and surveillance information.

With a wingspan of 3.75 feet and a weight of 5.9 pounds, the Dragon Eye airplane provides aerial observation at line-of-sight ranges of up to 5 kilometers. Using GPS navigation, the Dragon Eye autonomously flies from operator programmable waypoints. The Dragon Eye’s electric motors provide an extremely low noise signature, and the small wingspan makes it difficult to detect in flight.

Dragon Eye’s payloads are capable of real-time, high-resolution color or infrared imaging. In addition to viewing imagery in real time, this small UAS enables the operator to “click capture” and store still images on the mission-programming computer.