industry aerospace energy founded 1971 headquarters monrovia california united states key people paul b. maccready jr. founder revenue us 0179.537 million april 30 2012 1 operating income us 43.538 million 2012 1 net income us 30.451 million 2012 1 total assets us 369.151 million april 30 2012 1 total equity us 299.198 million april 30 2012 1 website www.avinc.com aerovironment founder and former chairman paul maccready shows a cross section of the aerovironment nasa helios prototype wing spar . gossamer condor at nasm pathfinder plus left and helios prototype right on the dryden ramp aerovironment inc. is an american technology company in monrovia california and simi valley california that is primarily involved in energy systems electric vehicle systems and unmanned aerial vehicles uavs . paul b. maccready jr. a designer of human powered aircraft founded the company in 1971 . the company is probably most well known for developing a series of lightweight human powered and then solar powered vehicles . aerovironment is the pentagon s top supplier of small drones including the raven wasp and puma models . they have signed a strategic partnership with lockheed martin corp to develop their global observer to provide persistent airborne observation . 2 contents 1 vehicles developed 2 programs 3 electric vehicle charging stations 4 subsidiaries 5 references 6 external links vehicles developed edit among the vehicles the company built are gossamer condor the first successful human powered airplane . the gossamer condor is on display at the national air and space museum since it won the first kremer prize in 1977 . gossamer albatross in 1979 this human powered plane flew 23 miles 37 km across the english channel and claimed the largest prize in aviation history . another of these planes is displayed at the national air and space museum . gossamer penguin a solar powered variant of the gossamer albatross . solar challenger this plane flew 163 miles 262 km from paris france to england on solar power . high altitude solar halsol this solar powered unmanned aircraft was sponsored by the cia in the 1980s as the first unmanned solar powered aircraft in history prototyped for national security missions . it was declassified and transferred to the ballistic missile defense organization bmdo in 1993 where it was modified as a high altitude long endurance hale uav technology demonstrator capable of becoming weaponized to destroy theater ballistic missiles in the boost phase of flight called boost phase intercept . lawrence livermore national laboratory was the executing agent for the bmdo program . dr. nick colella and dr. lowell wood led the llnl efforts for the bmdo program manager ltcol usaf dale tietz . ray morgan led the program in aerovironment alongside dr. paul maccready and tim conver . this was a fast paced demo program supported at the highest levels of government . the ultimate goal was to develop the world s first fly forever hale uav that could be configured for a variety of national security missions . the program was cancelled in 1995 due to budget reductions in the clinton administration at which time the aircraft called pathfinder was transferred to nasa for a new program . pathfinder flew several flight test missions at nasas dryden flight research center before the property transfer occurred . bmdo and llnl also started initial development of new ultra lightweight hypersonic interceptor rockets that could be deployed from pathfinder and its derivatives . the interceptor called astrid flew several successful missions during this time period at vandenberg afb ca . nasa pathfinder and pathfinder plus this unmanned plane built by aerovironment as a part of the nasa erast program demonstrated that an airplane could stay aloft for an extended period of time fueled purely by solar power . after initial successes the pathfinder was rebuilt into the larger pathfinder plus which is also on display at the national air and space museum . 3 dale tietz from the pentagon s bmdo program transferred the pathfinder aircraft to nasa for the erast program where aerovironment managed its development as a non weaponized variant . nasa centurion the centurion was an expansion of the pathfinder concept designed to achieve the erast program goal of sustained flight at 100 000 feet 30 000 m altitude . 3 nasa helios prototype derived from the centurion this solar cell and fuel cell powered uav set a world record for flight at 96 863 feet 29 524 m . it was intended to be the prototype for the production helios aircraft envisioned as an atmospheric satellite . the erast program was terminated in 2003 and as of 2008 helios has not entered production . 3 in actuality it has been reborn in the form of the global observer uas currently in development under a joint concept technology demonstration led by ussocom . 4 the key technology shift was switching from solar power to liquid hydrogen power . aerovironment global observer the los angeles times reported first flight of global observer happening at the mojave desert in the first week of january 2011 . 5 global observer is powered from hydrogen appears to have 4 motors with twin bladed props has a 175 foot 53 m wingspan 65 000 foot 20 000 m maximum altitude airspeed greater than 120 mph 190 km h and 5 to 7 day maximum flight duration . 6 sunraycer this solar powered car won the first world s first solar car race in australia in 1987 . the next fastest car finished two days after the sunraycer . this car is at the smithsonian national museum of american history . gm impact this was an electric car developed as a serious prototype for a mass production consumer car . aerovironment rq 11 raven a small military uav . it is hand launched with a wingspan of 4.5 feet 1.4 m and a weight of 4.2 pounds 1.9 kg providing color and infrared video to its handheld ground control as well as remote viewing stations . over 9 000 ravens have been delivered or are on order as of june 2008 . aerovironment wasp iii a miniature hand launched production uav that provides aerial observation at line of sight ranges up to 3.1 miles 5.0 km . in 2007 the wasp was selected by the us air force as the choice for their batmav program . 7 as of 2008 over 1 000 wasp aircraft have been delivered to customers worldwide . aerovironment rq 20 puma a small lightweight battery powered hand launched production uav that provides aerial observation at line of sight ranges up to 6.2 miles 10.0 km . puma s avionics enable autonomous flight and precise gps navigation . it was originally designed to demonstrate advanced propulsion technologies for such aircraft . it flew in june 2007 for five hours 8 powered by an onboard fuel cell battery hybrid energy storage system . another attempt in november 2007 saw a flight time greater than seven hours . 9 these experimental flights integrated procore fuel cell from protonex technology corporation 10 and hydrogen generation technology from millennium cell inc. on july 2 2008 u.s. special operations command ussocom selected the puma ae variant as its all environment capable variant aecv solution . aerovironment nano hummingbird announced in 2011 a hummingbird look alike drone equipped with a camera can fly at speeds of up to 11 miles 18 km per hour . it can climb and descend vertically fly sideways forward and backward as well as rotate clockwise and counter clockwise by remote control for about eight minutes . aerovironment skytote a vtol fixed wing hybrid uav which has attained the advantages of both plane designs respectively vtol takeoff capability and decreased energy usage . aerovironment switchblade a miniature electrically powered armed unmanned drone kamikaze weapon for use by deployed military troops in the field . 11 aerovironment fqm 151 pointer aerovironment rq 14 dragon eye programs edit aerovironment holds a five year 4.7 million idiq indefinite delivery indefinite quantity contract from the u.s. air force research laboratory for the development of advanced propulsion technologies for uavs . the contract also provides for specific technological tasks such as integration of solar cells into aircraft wings electric motor efficiency improvement technologies and development of hydrogen storage systems for aircraft . 8 as a us based provider of products and technology for clean energy and efficient vehicles aerovironment has received a united states patent for technology that facilitates the optimal charging management control and maintenance of battery packs chargers and electric vehicles evs . citation needed in 2013 aerovironment participated in the darpa tern program and received 2 million for phase 1 12 and 19 million for phase 2 . 13 14 15 the tactically exploited reconnaissance node program attempts to launch and recover a uav from mid size ships to provide long distance intelligence gathering . 16 however in september 2015 aerovironment was not selected to move onto phase 3 of the program . 17 brammo empulse electric motorcycle at an aerovironment charging station . electric vehicle charging stations edit aerovironment offers a 240v home charging station for electric vehicles . it is compatible with the sae j1772 standard for level 2 charging . 18 nissan selected aerovironment to supply this home charging station and installation services for the nissan leaf electric car . 19 aerovironment also sells level 3 high voltage dc fast charge stations compatible with the chademo standard that can charge a think electric car to 80 % in 15 minutes . 20 aerovironment participates in various government and industry initiatives to create an electric vehicle charging infrastructure . 20 21 aerovironment also sells the posicharge line of industrial electric vehicle charging systems for forklifts and other warehouse vehicles . subsidiaries edit pathfinder plus in flight over hawaii june 2002 equipped with skytower communications equipment aerovironment owns skytower inc. which was formed in 2000 to develop the technologies and government approvals to use high altitude uavs as atmospheric satellites or high altitude communications relay platforms . 22 in july 2002 the nasa aerovironment uav pathfinder plus carried commercial communications relay equipment developed by skytower in a test of using the aircraft as a broadcast platform . skytower in partnership with nasa and the japan ministry of telecommunications tested the concept of an atmospheric satellite by successfully using the aircraft to transmit both an hdtv signal as well as an imt 2000 wireless communications signal from 65 000 feet 20 000 m giving the aircraft the equivalence of a 12 miles 19 km tall transmitter tower . because of the aircraft s high lookdown angle the transmission utilized only one watt of power or 1 10 000 of the power required by a terrestrial tower to provide the same signal . 23 according to stuart hindle vice president of strategy & business development for skytower skytower platforms are basically geostationary satellites without the time delay . further hindle said that such platforms flying in the stratosphere as opposed to actual satellites can achieve much higher levels of frequency use . a single skytower platform can provide over 1 000 times the fixed broadband local access capacity of a geostationary satellite using the same frequency band on a bytes per second per square mile basis . 24 references edit a b c d e aerovironment inc. annual report . aerovironment inc. hennigan w.j. march 4 2014 . aerovironment profit nearly triples in third quarter . los angeles times . retrieved august 10 2016 . a b c nasa helios factsheet . nasa.gov . archived from the original on 24 november 2010 . retrieved 2010 11 27 . http www.avinc.com pr detail.asp id 63 archived may 20 2008 at the wayback machine . hennigan w.j. 2011 01 11 . new generation of unmanned spy planes is being tested . los angeles times . http www.avinc.com globalobserver archived copy . archived from the original on 2011 07 19 . retrieved 2009 03 26 . a