The Point and Toss unmanned aircraft system was unveiled by IATech at the 2009 Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C. in August. The system is designed so that a single user can independently assemble, hand launch, and recover the UAS. The main function of the Point and Toss is surveillance and reconnaissance missions, in particular, situations where the user simply wants to obtain aerial photographs of what’s ahead. With a two minute setup and launch time, the system is easy to get flying.

Each aircraft is equipped with IATech’s proprietary autopilot, SmartIMU GPS/inertial suite, and embedded vision system. The standard UAS is equipped with an EO camera for daylight operations. An IR camera option is available as well. All aerial photographs are geo-referenced and stored to a secure digital card onboard the aircraft. These geo-referenced images can be overlaid using software such as FalconView or Google Earth. In addition, the system can easily be configured to transmit the images to the user’s ground control station. Use of IATech’s proprietary hardware and software suite allows for ultimate flexibility in system design.