Omen Drone:
America’s Anduril and the UAE’s state-owned defence conglomerate, EDGE Group, will jointly develop the Omen drone at a new, 50,000 square feet (4,645 square metres) research centre in Abu Dhabi.
- It is a new tail-sitting vertical takeoff and landing drone with a hybrid-electric propulsion system.
- It will be developed by America’s Anduril and the UAE’s state-owned defence conglomerate, EDGE Group.
- It is intended to be modular and adaptable to a wide array of military and non-military missions.
- The Omen drone is designed to complement larger systems in tactical roles such as maritime surveillance, critical infrastructure protection, and persistent ISR coverage over choke points and coastal areas.
- Omen is a twin-rotor aircraft that takes off from and lands in a tail-sitting position, where it stands about 10 feet tall.
- It features relatively long and slender main wings, mounted toward the rear of the fuselage, together with canard foreplanes on either side of the nose.
- It also has a twin-boom tail configuration extending from the rear of the nacelles on each wing.
- It is compact, foldable, and transportable by a two-person team without heavy infrastructure, allowing deployment from rough terrain or forward sites.
- It is designed to switch between two flight modes: it can take off, hover, and land vertically like a drone or helicopter but can also transition to airplane-style flight for longer and faster missions.
- Its open architecture supports modular payloads like electro-optical or infrared sensors and communication relays.
