NEXTGEN FEDERAL SYSTEMS LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: A17-026

Description

The Autonomous Environmental Routing Onboard (AERO) system is an innovative software-hardware solution that performs onboard processing of environmental information from multiple sources to execute autonomous route adjustments, minimizing negative environmental impacts as well as leveraging advantageous conditions, for multi-rotor autonomous systems (MRAS) executing missions as a swarm.AERO is an intelligent MRAS, which can ingest meteorological data to construct impact grids provided to the Automated Impacts Routing (AIR) system, resulting in optimal routes for the autopilot controller. The solution includes onboard sensor hosting and communication with an intelligent autonomous system (IAS) swarm and ground control. AERO can leverage favorable environmental conditions to expand flight time, improving the swarms mission capabilities. AEROs innovative architecture allows for integration of various environmental sensor type for route optimization and collective data sharing. With its dual-mode capabilities, AERO is designed to function by ingesting data grids and sharing onboard sensor data. When connectivity is not available, AERO becomes self-reliant, using internally-stored data and sensors to continue the mission.AERO can be further expanded to additional Defense and Government (e.g. FAA, NASA) needs as well as other emergent federal, civil, and commercial applications (e.g. Homeland Security and Customs, Border Patrol, UAS manufacturers, Amazon, Google, etc.).