News & Articles

Unmanned aircraft firm AeroVironment, Inc. this week announced the relocation of its corporate headquarters from Simi Valley to Arlington, Virginia.

But officials with the defense contractor – in the spotlight recently for its role in the creation of NASA's Mars Ingenuity helicopter – said it will keep its former headquarters at 900 Innovators Way open for business. It will also continue operations at its three other Simi Valley facilities and one in Moorpark.

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SIMI VALLEY, Calif., June 15, 2021 – AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV), a global leader in intelligent, multi-domain robotic systems, today announced the relocation of its corporate headquarters from Simi Valley, Calif. to Arlington, Va., effective June 15, 2021.

“The greater Washington D.C. area is where many of our key customers are located, and expanding our presence in the region will further our access to decision makers, influencers and talent,” said Wahid Nawabi, AeroVironment president and chief executive officer. “Our recent acquisition of Progeny Systems ISG and our new Artificial Intelligence Innovation Center expand our footprint near the Beltway and build on our momentum as we continue to grow our portfolio and global scope. We look forward to growing our Washington, D.C. presence and continuing to serve our customers with solutions that help them Proceed with Certainty.” 

AeroVironment will maintain its presence and existing operations in Simi Valley, Calif. and other existing sites across the United States and in Germany.

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Drones in the air can now partner with robots on the ground. CNBC’s Jane Wells reports from Moorpark, California, on changes coming to the drone industry.

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HMS Tamar made extensive use of small Puma aircraft during trials with the Royal Marines and the Met Police as the ship practices for ‘constabulary duties’ when she deploys for the first time this summer.

Although Tamar has a flight deck, she doesn’t carry a helicopter on a regular basis – there’s no hangar, so Merlin and Wildcat helicopters only use the ship for refuelling, collecting supplies or making a short stop.

The Puma could fulfil some of the helicopter’s intelligence-gathering role – with its 50-times zoom camera it feeds live footage back to a mother ship at ranges up to a dozen miles.

Building on their experiences aboard HMS Albion in the Mediterranean last year, a team from 700X Naval Air Squadron – the Fleet Air Arm’s only pilotless squadron – brought their drone to Tamar.

Just over 4½ft long, with a wingspan of 9ft and weighing as much as six bags of sugar, Puma can survey an area of up to 270 square miles of ocean – that’s larger than Greater Manchester – looking for suspicious activity during sorties lasting up to 2½ hours.

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On Friday, May 7, the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter left both Wright Brothers Field and the Perseverance Rover behind. Flying for 110 seconds, Ingenuity traveled 423 feet at a new height of 33 feet, capturing high resolution color images before landing at its new Red Planet home, which bears the tepid but significant name Airfield B. Ingenuity had become an operational scout in addition to its original role as a technology demonstrator.

In previous reports, key members of the AeroVironment team talked with Inside Unmanned Systems about the company’s development of Ingenuity’s airframe and some major subsystems, its collaborations with NASA, JPL and other aviation/aerospace companies, and the challenges involved with learning to fly in Mars’ rarified atmosphere.

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We first told you about the tiny helicopter Ingenuity and the one-ton rover Perseverance nearly a year ago before they left Earth, but they've come a very long way since then. In February, they landed in a hazardous and previously unexplored part of Mars called the Jezero Crater, where Perseverance will be looking for signs of ancient life. Last month, Ingenuity disconnected from Perseverance's belly and made history -- performing the first flights ever in the atmosphere of another planet. It's hard to imagine but worth remembering as you watch what we're about to show you, that this all happened millions of miles away, in outer space.

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When it comes to flying high, AeroVironment has led the way in sustained solar-powered, high-altitude flight with projects dating back more than 40 years. Building on its pioneering innovations — Gossamer Condor, Solar Challenger, Pathfinder Plus, and Helios — AeroVironment advanced these earlier technologies to develop a solar-powered, high-altitude platform station (HAPS) named Sunglider™.

“These earlier innovations made significant contributions to the current HAPS aircraft,” said Bob Curtin, HAPS business development director. “I think it’s reasonable to say that the development of today’s HAPS aircraft started with the Gossamer Condor in 1977.”

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As of Friday, April 30 (local time), the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter had completed its fourth successful flight, exceeding expectations and moving from being a technical to an operational demonstrator. 

In Part One of “Inside Ingenuity with AeroVironment—Designing It,” key personnel from the company talked about designing and developing Ingenuity’s airframe and some of its major subsystems, including its rotor blades and hub and control mechanism hardware. They also discussed how AeroVironment worked with JPL, Lockheed Martin and others to integrate its work into a vehicle capable of reaching and operating on Mars.

Now, in Part Two—”Challenges Overcome”—the engineering team recalls surmounting obstacles so Ingenuity and its 4-foot rotor blades could master the ultra-thin atmosphere of the red planet.

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• Transaction combines leaders in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) for broader, integrated mission solutions in air, near-space, ground and maritime domains
• Acquisition expected to be accretive within two years to AeroVironment GAAP EPS, and accretive to non-GAAP EPS in fiscal year 2022
• AeroVironment competing for multi-year United States Air Force Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) robotic system program

SIMI VALLEY, Calif., May 4, 2021 – AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV), a global leader in intelligent, multi-domain robotic systems, today announced it was granted clearance from the German government and completed the previously announced acquisition of Telerob Gesellschaft für Fernhantierungstechnik mbH (Telerob), in a $45.4 million (€37.5 million) cash transaction and the pay-off of approximately $9.4 million (€7.8 million) in Telerob’s debt at closing. Telerob now operates as a wholly-owned subsidiary of AeroVironment.

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April 19^th saw what some have christened “a second Wright Brothers moment”—namely, the successful first powered controlled flight by an aircraft on another world. Reaching Mars on the underside of the Perseverance rover, the tiny, autonomous Mars Ingenuity Helicopter (5.4’ x 7.7’ x 6.4”) spun its 4-foot rotors and hovered 10 feet off the ground for 30 seconds.

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