USPTO Publishes NASA Patent Licensed by Vigilant Aerospace for FlightHorizon Software

Vigilant Aerospace celebrated the publication of NASA’s Patent #9,405,005 today! Vigilant Aerospace is the exclusive licensee of this patent, which includes technologies for:

• Integration of aircraft transponders onto unmanned aircraft
• Signal processing and integrity
• Loss-of-signal contingencies
• Detect-and-avoid processes and contingencies
• A software user interface for air traffic display and airspace management
• Display of air traffic to a geo-browser including 2D and 3D displays
• And other innovations…

You can read the whole patent publication here: Patent #9,405,005

NASA Patent Licensed by Vigilant Aerospace Systems

The technologies were invented by Flight Systems Engineer Dr. Ricardo Arteaga working at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center. The patent is the culmination of several years of work developing flight safety systems for drones and especially a focus on allowing drones to integrate with air traffic control, to enter the national airspace and to obtain authorization for beyond line-of-sight flight. The patent and associated licensed technologies have been used by Vigilant Aerospace as the basis for our new FlightHorizon UAS™ and FlightHorizon GA™ products, which were recently announced. Congratulations to Dr. Arteaga and the whole team at NASA Armstrong on the new patent and a bright future for safe unmanned flight in the national airspace! Want to know more about how FlightHorizon helps make drones safer?

Watch our new 2-minute explainer video:

  Top Image: from left, Dr. Ricardo Arteaga, Mike Dandachy and intern Moshe Cavalin use FAA’s ADS-B aircraft tracking technology to work on a simulation of unmanned aircraft in the national air space. Credits: NASA