An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) successfully completed its maiden flight, marking a new milestone in Taiwan’s progress in the field, academic sources said on Wednesday.
The unmanned aircraft, dubbed Spoonbill UAV, successfully flew 92km from Taiwan proper to Penghu on Tuesday in what was the first flight of its kind across the Taiwan Strait, NCKU said in a press statement.
NCKU president Michael Lai (賴明詔), also an Academia Sinica academic, was quoted in the statement as saying that the unprecedented flight was not only an achievement for the university, but was also “Taiwan’s pride.”
“It is also an important achievement in Asia,” Lai said, adding that NCKU’s UAV technology was the “cream of Taiwan” and the “best of Asia.”
The NCKU research team arrived with the 30kg aircraft early on Tuesday morning at an airstrip it had specially constructed on a salt flat in Cigu (七股), Tainan County.
The team then installed the antenna and activated the mainframe computer in preparation for the test.
The drone took off at 9:20am under manual remote control, flying at 100kph at an altitude of 300m toward Penghu’s Dongji Island (東吉嶼).
Ten minutes after takeoff it was beyond the team’s field of vision and switched to automatic control.
For about 30 minutes or so the team lost computer contact with the aircraft and there was some anxiety.
However, at about 10am, the mainframe computer began receiving information from the aircraft again and the research team piloted it by remote control to land at 10:17am on Dongji, completing the 52-minute flight.
The NCKU’s Remotely Piloted Vehicle & Micro Satellite Research Laboratory (RMRL) built the Spoonbill UAV in April this year after 20 years of research and development.
The aircraft is 2.2m long, 3.7m wide and 0.9m high.
In 2005, the team also completed a successful 16km test flight of the smaller Swan UAV from Donggang (東港), Pingtung County, to Liuchia (小琉球) island.
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics professor Hsiao Fei-bin (蕭飛賓) said a complete UAV should operate with two major systems — on board systems and a ground station that allows researchers to control the vehicle’s movement and monitor the images transmitted by an onboard camera.
Hsiao said a UAV developed in Australia more than a decade ago was able to fly more than 1,000km, but the vehicle was not equipped with an automatic flight system, onboard camera, video transmitter or GPS aviation system.
“That vehicle lagged far behind the Spoonbill in terms of technology,” he said.
The Spoonbill’s onboard systems include a wireless module for a data link between the aircraft and the ground control station, an onboard surveillance camera that takes aerial video and images as well as a video transmitter that transmits onboard video to the control station in real time.
Hsiao said that 80 percent of the Spoonbill’s parts and components were made in Taiwan.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as