AeroVironment Raven RQ-11 Small Unmanned Aircraft Family

The AeroVironment Raven RQ-11 is a lightweight, hand-launched small unmanned aircraft family designed for rapid deployment, autonomous navigation, and low-altitude intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. It became the most prolific small UAS deployed with U.S. forces and remains a widely fielded tactical platform. Decommissioned Raven A aircraft were also transferred to the U.S. Geological Survey for civil natural-resource research. At Colorado's Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, USGS and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service researchers compared airborne video with simultaneous ground counts to evaluate surveys of migrating sandhill cranes. The proof-of-concept work examined both the imagery's counting value and the birds' behavioural responses to the aircraft.