Page 21 - EngineerIT Nov-Dec 2025

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month. The data transfer was facilitated small, fixed-wing commercial drone These conformal antennas
by the South African National Research designed for surveillance, mapping, reduce drag and increase overall
Network (SANReN), which is managed conservation and inspection tasks. performance. The tail construction
and implemented by the CSIR. SANReN process for the Elevation UAV was
is a key component of South Africa’s AISI is a South African government improved, moving from a time-
National Integrated Cyberinfrastructure initiative with a specific aim of consuming composite sandwich
System and provides researchers with improving the competitiveness of the method to a novel machined or
the tools to send and retrieve large local aeronautics, space, defence and injection-moulded core covered
datasets efficiently across global sector-wide advanced manufacturing in a composite shell with integral
networks. industries. The Department of control surfaces.
Trade, Industry and Competition
The Africa Health Research Institute (the DTIC) utilises the CSIR to give Three companies contributed to
(AHRI), regularly engages SANReN for industry access to national expertise the project: overall project lead
support. They needed to transfer two and infrastructure to improve its Avior Labs; airframe manufacturer
terabytes of raw genetic sequence capabilities and offerings. Lightweight Structures and
data to a high-performance computing LambdaG, an antenna expert
server at Harvard University in the US. The Elevation UAV offers greater responsible for the embedded
At AHRI's own achievable transfer speed endurance than multirotor drones antenna design and manufacture.
of 700 kb-per-second, the process and is more affordable than
would have taken approximately 35 international alternatives. This The trio of technology companies
days. new UAV marks a shift away from are now well-positioned to benefit
traditional moulded composite from the growing demand for
Using its 100 GB-per-second data construction – using hand-made hybrid vertical take-off and
transfer nodes (DTNs) based in glass and carbon fibre – to a landing UAVs, which offer greater
Johannesburg, SANReN completed hybrid composite and expanded endurance and require minimal
the transfer in under an hour at a polypropylene construction method. space for take-off and landing.
rate of eight GB-per-second. SANReN This approach is ideal for large
maintains multiple DTNs across the production runs and results in a These are only two of the many
country, consisting of specialised lightweight product. The project developments that have come
hardware and software optimised for also involved replacing suboptimal from the CSIR. The 2024/2025
high-speed, large scale data transfers. commercial-off-the-shelf Annual Reports features many
omnidirectional datalink antennas of the pioneering projects and is
Taking to the skies with embedded, conformal antennas worth a read. It is available from
The combined capabilities of three that form part of the hybrid fuselage the CSIR.
local technology companies, supported construction introduced in a previous
by AISI, led to the industrialisation of a project. *hans@comsa.africa

21 | EngineerIT November/December 2025