GE Aviation, Hybrid Project​ team up for VTOL UAS

GE Aviation has teamed with Hybrid Project to provide a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAV capability for high endurance commercial applications.

The teaming arrangement will provide comprehensive integration of ground, cloud and airborne components, including Hybrid Project’s 35lbs hybrid-powered SuperVolo VTOL UAV with a full stack airborne computing hardware platform, and flight and safety management. Integration will be carried out by GE Aviation and Auterion.

GE Aviation’s computing platform will enable flight control and airborne computing power at the edge while maintaining an independent and authoritative safety controller. Auterion’s Enterprise PX4 operating system resides on the vehicle, in the cloud and the ground station.

Flight testing of the solution will commence in quarter four of 2019 with commercial availability targeted for the first quarter of 2020.

Matt Vacanti, product leader, avionics systems for GE Aviation, said: ‘The combination of Hybrid Project’s SuperVolo airframe, GE Aviation’s computing platform, and Auterion’s software stack enables an all-in-one solution that readily scales for commercial applications. A highly integrated system is critical to achieving scalable commercial UAV operations.’