QinetiQ's Zephyr wins two awards
Above: Robert Llewellyn (far left) with the HALE team.
The IET Innovation Awards celebrate the products, technologies and processes that lead the way in engineering innovation. These annual awards provide a unique opportunity for engineering innovators to showcase their brightest ideas and are judged by leaders in industry and academia. The ceremony - held at the IET on Wednesday evening - was hosted by Robert Llewellyn, actor, writer and presenter best known for playing the role of ‘Kryten’ in the hit science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf.
After an exciting period of intensive judging prior to the event, QinetiQ won first prize in two categories; Emerging Technologies and Product Design. Congratulations go to Chris Kelleher, Jon Saltmarsh and Jon Dixon in the HALE team on their successful submission.
Zephyr is QinetiQ's High Altitude Long Endurance solar powered unmanned aircraft, which provides surveillance or communications capability continuously over an area for weeks – or even months – at a time.
It claimed three official world records in 2010. These were; the longest flying UAV in the world (beating Global Hawk by a factor of 11) at 336 hours 22min 8 sec (absolute duration record Unmanned); the highest flying UAV in its Class (50-500kg) at 21,562m; and the longest duration for a UAV in its Class (50-500kg).
