UK engineers planning to build a mid-mass logistics drone called the Sky Hopper

Advertisement

A group of engineers in the United Kingdom is planning to build a “mid-mass logistics drone” for global markets called the Sky Hopper.

Initially, the system will be aimed at remote and isolated communities, but the plan is for it to be “fully capable of near urban operations in due course.”

The UAV system, which will have a cargo mass load of 100 kilograms, has an “electrically powered tri fan design” that will be built at Prestwick in the West of Scotland. The West of Scotland is an area that is unique for the development of beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) potential, as well as for the testing of autonomous flight capabilities, thanks to its “thinly inhabited landscape and coast.”

The system’s avionics are being developed in Hampshire in South Central England.

Sky Hopper’s development team includes aeronautical engineers, certification and design specialists, electric machine designers, and advanced battery developers. Promoters of the system say that the project will follow a “carefully managed step-by-step approach.”

“Civil UAV development is still in early days,” says project leader Eben Wilson.

“We want to engineer a pathway to a commercial future; and we have the strong team to work through the certification requirements alongside the technical issues. It's a challenge, but it really is time we did this.”

Being that this project is pushing the envelope of unmanned aerial capabilities, it will require a lot of coordination between Sky Hopper's development team and regulators, so that safe operating methods and procedures can be developed.

“The regulators want a civil UAV industry to develop in the UK,” says Fred Gorrie, technical lead in design certification and regulation.

He adds, “but they also want safety equal to normal aerospace industry competences. That's where we want to go too, and we think Scotland gives us the space to do that.”

Included in the Sky Hopper project commercial plan are unmanned delivery networks that “set up local communities as franchisees for aero-parks; locally owned assets through which multiple Sky Hopper missions are flown,” which will ultimately create revenue for local communities.

Thus far, early prototyping of the project has been privately funded, as the founders have invested their own money along with some initial sponsorship funding, but “a sequenced campaign of further donations, crowd funding via Indiegogo and a follow up Enterprise Investment Scheme” is underway.