Compared to autonomous driving technology, remote piloting and automated assistance software is gradually being introduced into non-commercial aircraft, allowing for the emergence of autonomous aircraft in the future, as envisioned by Merlin Labs, a startup. based in Boston, which recently announced a partnership that will bring its automation software aboard a fleet with a total of 55 King Air aircraft .
This company is currently working on an autonomous piloting platform for airplanes, which would have raised a total of 25 million dollars since its creation in 2018. A financial contribution that, in part, came from Google (a through the former Google Ventures), and First Round Capital, among others.
The startup, based in various areas of the United States and also in Auckland, New Zealand, intends to use this financial contribution to continue its research, consisting of the development of a complete autonomous piloting platform for aircraft , which should be certified and Comply with all applicable aviation standards.
Merlin Labs claims to have already performed hundreds of takeoffs and landings, and to have trained its system through several thousand hours of simulation, integrating its autonomous piloting platform into a total of four different types of ravioli, from single-engine aircraft to multi-engine aircraft. engines. A system that would be suitable and suitable for different brands of aircraft.
A partnership to equip a fleet of 55 aircraft
In this way, Merlin Labs has taken the moment to announce that it has signed an initial contract with Dynamic Aviation, which has a large fleet of King Air aircraft, equipping 55 aircraft with its autonomous piloting system that will carry out various missions in both the public and private sectors .
The startup has indicated that its in-flight autonomy platform is “independent of aircraft”, which would allow it to adapt not only to new models, but also to those already on the market.
The company’s goal is to populate the skies with a large number of autonomous aircraft (that is, without a pilot), carrying both passengers and cargo.
And as Matthew George, co-founder and CEO of Merlin Labs, has noted, “This agreement represents a significant business milestone, in addition to Merlin’s commitment to supporting much larger and more complex aircraft.”
Of course, although it is true that the startup is currently testing a first aircraft in the Mojave Desert, at the moment the interested parties do not specify a precise deployment program, so we do not know when these systems could actually be available. of autonomous piloting in the rest of the aircraft.
In the past Google Ventures, considered the venture capital arm of Alphabet, has financed flying car startups such as Kitty Hawk or Aero, so the new participation in Merlin Labs does not surprise us. What’s more, Google’s parent company already operates an autonomous vehicle division at Waymo.
