Fully autonomous flight, from take-off to landing , this is what the artificial intelligence startup Merlin Labs offers.
It has already announced a funding round and a partnership with Dynamic Aviation to put a fleet of 55 King Air jets in the air without humans on board.
Autonomous flight for fixed-wing aircraft
Autonomous fixed-wing flight may sound familiar, but there is a big difference between designing a hybrid or remote control drone from scratch and building a system that can fly almost any fixed-wing aircraft .
The company plans to become the first autonomous flight system for large fixed-wing aircraft, certified by the necessary government entities as in full compliance with aviation regulations.
To design these systems, then, the company’s researchers use data generated by human pilots to build flight simulations to test their artificial intelligence systems. From there, he outfitted various aircraft, from smaller craft to the large King Air aircraft shown in the images above, with the hardware necessary to run his autonomous pilot system.
The company was working with government and civil partners to develop and implement the technology. He has also stated that this technology could have applications in many other fields, including military transportation, agriculture, and firefighting.
Meanwhile, Merlin Labs is already operating its first King Air autonomously and has 55 more on the way for what will become the world’s first fleet of fully autonomous fixed-wing aircraft.