Unmanned Airspace recently covered Vigilant Aerospace Systems’ latest flight tests and demonstrations of FlightHorizon PILOT, the company’s onboard detect-and-avoid (DAA) system for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS). The article highlights recent testing of both a lightweight civilian version of the system and a heavier version with onboard radar for detecting aircraft without transponders.
The coverage notes that FlightHorizon PILOT provides onboard detection, tracking, target correlation, trajectory calculation, alerting, and avoidance guidance. The system operates on a single-board computer carried by the aircraft. Recent flights demonstrated the system’s ability to track targets, calculate trajectories, and issue alerts and avoidance commands during flight. The system can support cooperative airspace using transponder data and non-cooperative airspace using onboard radar.
The article also reports that the development and test flights are part of a $1 million project with Oklahoma State University’s Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Research and Education (OAIRE), with support from the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST).
Read the full article here.
About Unmanned Airspace
Unmanned Airspace is an information portal covering uncrewed aircraft system traffic management, urban air mobility, counter-UAS, and space traffic management systems. The publication is edited and published by Philip Butterworth-Hayes and includes reporting and analysis from aviation, defense, security, and air traffic management professionals.
Vigilant Aerospace is the leading developer of multi-sensor detect-and-avoid and airspace management software for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS or drones). The company’s product, FlightHorizon, is based on two NASA patents and uses data from multiple sources to display a real-time picture of the air traffic around a UAS and to provide automatic avoidance maneuvers to prevent collisions. The software is designed to meet industry technical standards, to provide automatic safety and to allow UAS to safely fly beyond the sight of the pilot. The software has won multiple industry awards and the company has had contracts and users at NASA, the FAA, the U.S. Department of Defense and with a variety of drone development programs. Visit our website at www.VigilantAerospace.com