Vetal offers best of both worlds – it’s a fixed wing craft and can land like a drone

What do you get when you cross a drone with a fixed wing aircraft? The answer is Vetal – and we saw it at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Vetal was launched in November 2021 and looks like something from Batman’s arsenal.

It is a fixed-wing drone that solves the problem most operators of this type of craft face – it can vertically take-off and land in the same way as a multirotor drone.

Fixed wing drones don’t normally offer that sort of luxury – they need a wider area to land like a regular aircraft.

But Vetal has provided the best of both worlds with fixed-wing efficiency as well as precise control for a drone-like landing.

Vetal is already being used in industry for mapping and road constructions and other large-scale surveys, but the company is aiming to bring the product into even more industries and introduce it into the consumer space.

In agriculture, Vetal can provide information like yield estimation, weed and disease detection as well as detecting the type and amount of fertilisation required.

Weighing less than five kilos, Vetal has a 1.3m wingspan and can be used for various types of photography but has a swappable payload allowing the users to change camera types including RGB, multi spectral and thermal and other instruments.

The craft is made of military grade material and has a sleek aerodynamic design which allows it to fly for longer periods on a single charge.

As a mapping tool, Vetal can complete fully autonomous missions thanks to its 4G/5G capability so it can fly longer range operations and provide ultra-high resolution data streaming.

Vetal can cover twice the area as the same sized fixed wing and can provide 14 times more coverage than most multi-rotor drones.

As well as being able to vertically take-off and land like a regular drone, Vetal can also land on a moving object like a ship, truck or train thanks to its fully integrated visual, IR and radar-based technology and target seeking navigation.