UMEX 2024 – Belarus unveils Spotter-PB-3 reconnaissance UAV
At UMEX 2024 the Republican Unitary Enterprise “Scientific and Production Centre of Multifunctional Unmanned Systems” of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus presented for the first time at an exhibition its new Spotter-PB-3 reconnaissance UAV, the development of which took two years.
As representatives of the company told EDR On-Line, the UAV has passed all tests and has been put into mass production for the Special Operations Forces (Sily Spetsialnych Operatsii, SSO) of Belarus.
The device, made of composite materials and foam, is supplied to SSO forces as part of a wearable backpack weighing 10 kg. In addition to one UAV weighing 5 kg, it includes a ground control station (GCS) in the form of a portable tablet and an antenna. In transport configuration, the wing is undocked from the fuselage.
The Spotter-PB-3 is a fixed-wing UAV featuring a high-mounted straight wing and a conventional tail unit with horizontal tailplane and vertical rudder. An electric motor with a two-blade pusher propeller is installed in the middle of the high wing. In the lower part of the fuselage, at the centre, we find the optronic sensor, made either of a TV camera or an infrared camera, that is extended in flight and retracted into the fuselage during landing.
The Spotter PB-3 is launched by hand and lands on the fuselage without a parachute. Usually the airframe can be used 10 times.
The operational range is 10 km, flight speed is up to 65 km/h, endurance is up to 90 minutes, flight altitude is up to 900 metres.
A strapdown inertial navigation system is installed on board the UAV.
Photo courtesy N. Novichkov
