Israel’s Bental Industries Tuesday said that the German Federal Office of Defense Technology and Procurement assigned German UAV manufacturer EMT with testing of the MicroBAT 275, Bental’s latest development of a stabilized camera system for lightweight unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
“With the use of Bental’s stabilized camera system we hope to improve the picture quality of surveillance flights by our close range unmanned aerial vehicles,” Guenter Freiwald, project manager for Close Range UAVs at the German bureau said in a statement.
Bental manufactures electrical motion systems for aerospace and defense applications. Its latest development, a stabilized gimbal with daylight or night vision camera, MicroBAT 275, is designed to afford lightweight UAVs the same type imaging sensors usually normally found on larger platforms.
“Our stabilized camera system MicroBAT 275 has a diameter of 2.75 inches and a weight including housing, of only 350 grams (about half a pound),” Oliver Kittan, Bental’ representative in Germany, said. “This likely makes it the most lightweight and compact camera system of its kind in the world.”
Several UAV manufacturers have already integrated Bental’s stabilized camera system into their platforms, including Israel’s ITL with its Lightener UAV, and Italy’s Celin Avio with Finmeccanica’s Oto Melara on their joint Ibis UAV.
“The low weight of Bental’s stabilized camera system, MicroBAT 275, predestines it for use in EMT’s family of UAVs,” Kittan added.