Team Geared Up

Defense Tech: ‘Invisibile’ Boomerang ‘Bot

A small company out of Minneapolis, VeraTech Areo, has built a hand-held spy drone that it says is practically invisible. Battery powered and shaped like a boomerang, the “Phantom Sentinel” unmanned aeiral vehicle (UAV) “is in constant motion and the center of [its] mass is located outside of the fuselage,” Catherine MacRae Hockmuth tells us in the current issue of Defense Technology International. “As the aircraft spins, it disappears from vision,” an AeroTech fact sheet adds.

Even better, the company promises, is that the folding, backpack-ready drone “has a uniquely minimal cross section allowing it to ’slice’ through even the most adverse weather conditions that would keep conventional UAV systems on the ground. The rotational inertia generated in flight allows the UAV to self level and maintain a very high degree of stability, even while hovering.”