Overview
Today's commercial and defense tethered drones use cable materials that create issues during operation. Traditional durable materials are bulky and heavy often weighing drones down, while lighter weight materials absorb moisture and lack adequate protection to withstand harsh environments. These issues can considerably limit your payload options and reduce your drone’s capabilities.
Don't Let Your Tether Hold You Down!
GORE Tethered Drone Cables are a game-changer for the commercial and defense industries. We strike a balance by blending power and fiber optic cables with rugged materials in a small-scale hybrid design. Our tethered drone cables are 20% smaller than standard cables built with nylon, so they take up less space inside the Tether Management System (TMS), which means more design options and extra payload during operation.
We also tested our unique fiber braid cable against a standard nylon cable to see how both performed when immersed in harsh fluids. The nylon cable showed more than 7.5% weight pickup in salt water. But, our cable showed less than 1% weight pickup in salt water, which is more than 90% less weight pickup than the nylon cable! Testing proved that our tethered drone cable provided greater weight stability further increasing your design/payload options and operating height.
Better Protection For Longer Life
Conventional lightweight cables can be vulnerable to tough surroundings because they lack adequate protection, causing them to wear out long before the drone. Also, drones operating at high power can be susceptible to failure if materials are not compatible with high temperatures.
But not our low-weight tethered drone cables! They’re built with proven high-strength and weather-proof materials that deliver continuous high-voltage power, secure signals, and unfailing data transmission in difficult environments. Our cables are designed specifically to withstand crushing, abrasion, repeated reeling, fluctuating temperatures, humidity, rain, snow, and tough terrain.
In fact, our single-mode fiber optic cable meets ARINC 802-2 requirements and is proven to provide a high level of crush resistance with low insertion loss — ensuring a secure data link from the drone to the ground support equipment (GSE).
Not only that, our patent-pending fiber braid cable jacket is low friction and resists abrasion induced during operation or by the TMS. This low-friction jacket also makes it easier to handle our cables compared to nylon cables.
Ultimately, GORE Tethered Drone Cables maximize TMS availability and drone capability, increase design options/payload, enable drones to fly higher, expand line of sight/coverage, and operate over the drone’s lifetime.
High-Strength Construction of GORE Tethered Drone Cables.
Applications
GORE Tethered Drone Cables are engineered to perform reliably in a variety of commercial and defense applications, including:
- video streaming
- news, events, commercial photography, search and rescue
- industrial / land inspections
- telecommunications
- intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR)
- electro-optical infrared (EO/IR) sensors
- signals intelligence
If you have any questions or to discuss your specific application needs, please contact a Gore representative.
Benefits
GORE Tethered Drone Cables provide system engineers, designers and program managers with many benefits that improve electrical and mechanical performance such as:
- More design / payload options with smaller, lighter weight constructions
- Greater weight stability in harsh fluids for higher operating elevations / expanded line of site
- High-strength materials withstand challenging conditions such as extreme temps / repeated reeling
- Proven crush-resistant fiber optic cable that meets ARINC 802-2 requirements
- Durable protection against abrasion / easier handling due to low-friction fiber braid cable jacket
- Deliver continuous high-voltage power and secure, high-bandwidth data transfer
For more information about the benefits of our cables, please contact a Gore representative.
Properties
These values demonstrate the electrical, mechanical and environmental performance of GORE Tethered Drone Cables.
Download the data sheet to view product specifications, like diameter, weight, minimum bend radius, and conductor DC resistance.
| Electrical Property | Power Pair | Data Pair | Fiber Optic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Voltage (Vrms)a | 600 | 250 | — |
| Testing Voltage (Vrms) | 1500 | 1500 | — |
| Maximum Optical Loss at 1310 nm (dB/km) | — | — | 0.35 |
| Maximum Optical Loss at 1550 nm (dB/km) | — | — | 0.20 |
a Based on a NEMA HP3 wire.
| Mechanical / Electrical Property | Power Pair | Data Pair | Fiber Optic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jacket Material | Engineered Fluoropolymer Fiber Braid | ||
| Jacket Color | Black | ||
| Insulation Color | Gray / White | Blue / White | Brown |
| Insulation Wall Thickness mm (in) | 0.14 (0.006) | 0.14 (0.006) | — |
| Conductor | Silver-Plated Copper | Silver-Plated Copper | — |
| Mode Type (µm) | — | — | Single (900) |
| Core / Cladding / Coating | — | — | 8 / 125 / 245 |
| Coating Type | — | — | High Temperature Acrylate |
| Buffer | — | — | ePTFE |
| Dielectric Material | ePTFE / PTFE | ||
| Crush / Impact Resistanceb (ARINC 802-3) / kgf/cm (lb/in) |
— | — | Pass |
| Tensile Strengthb N (lb) 16 AWG 20 AWG 24 AWG |
1538 (345) 1092 (245) 910 (204) |
||
| Scrape Abrasion Resistanceb (Cycles) (SAE AS4373™) / 500 g (1.1 lb) |
> 36,000 | ||
| Fluid Immersion / Weight Stabilityb (AS4373 / % Absorption) |
Pass < 1 (Salt Water, Diesel) / < 2.5 (Hydraulic) |
||
| Cold Bend Resistanceb (SAE AS4373™) | Pass | ||
| Temperature Range (°C) | -60 to +200 | -60 to +200 | -60 to +85c |
a Based on a NEMA HP3 wire.
b Testing based on size 22 AWG.
c Attenuation may increase above 85°C.
Videos
Watch Gore engineers in these videos and more on YouTube demonstrating the durability of GORE Aerospace High Speed Data Cables.
Resources
Data Sheet: GORE® Tethered Drone Cables for Commercial and Defense Applications
Data Sheets, 897.67 KB
Understanding and Maximizing Tethered Drone Cable Performance in Harsh Operating Conditions
White Papers, 5.62 MB,
View all resources for GORE Tethered Drone Cables for Commercial and Defense Applications
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Posted September 16, 2020
W. L. Gore & Associates announced that its GORE® PHASEFLEX® Microwave/RF Test Assemblies were recognized among the 2020 Military & Aerospace Electronics Innovators Awards. An esteemed and experienced panel of judges from the aerospace and defense community recognized Gore as a Gold honoree. These assemblies are being recognized for their durability and reliability for precision testing of electronic warfare (EW) / radar suites; electronic surveillance/counter measures; radar warning systems; missile approach warning systems; and navigation/communication systems.
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Posted February 13, 2020
Gore announced today that its GORE® Microwave/RF Assemblies, 7 Series and GORE® Aerospace Fiber Optic Cables, 1.8 mm Simplex were recognized among the best by the 2019 Military & Aerospace Electronics Innovators Awards. An esteemed and experienced panel of judges from the aerospace and defense community recognized Gore as a Platinum honoree for both product lines.
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Stop by Booth S7-324 at this year’s Defense & Security Equipment International (DSEI) to preview Gore’s latest high-performance solutions.
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