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US 11,981,459 B2Granted
Armed aerial platform
AssigneeRafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.
InventorsArik Shitrit, Assaf Rubanenko, Shai Cohen
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An armed aerial platform (100) includes a weapon for firing a projectile from a barrel (102) that defines a weapon axis (104). The weapon is supported by a single-axis gimbal mechanism (116) within a central vertical slot (112) in a rigid body (108) of a UAV (108) carried by a propulsion system (114) including at least four rotary propulsion units. The gimbal mechanism (116) provides an elevation adjustment of the weapon axis (104), while the azimuth adjustment is provided by motion of the UAV (108) itself.
Claims16
An armed aerial platform comprising:
- (a) a weapon for firing a projectile from a barrel, said barrel defining a weapon axis;
- and
- (b) a UAV comprising:
- (i) an airframe including a rigid body, said rigid body being formed with a central vertical slot for receiving said weapon,
- (ii) a propulsion system including at least four rotary propulsion units supported by said airframe in a multirotor UAV configuration, and
- (iii) a single-axis gimbal mechanism supporting said weapon within said slot and controlling an inclination angle of said weapon axis relative to said body,
- wherein said rigid body defines a horizontal reference plane, and wherein said slot is an open-ended slot extending to one end of said body, said gimbal mechanism configured to control an inclination of said weapon axis through a range of angles enabled by said open-ended slot spanning a range above and below said horizontal reference plane.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.