XWING, INC. — National Aeronautics and Space Administration SBIR Phase I: A2

Description

Xwing is developing a certifiable Mission Management System (MMS) to enable safe and resilient autonomous operations. The goal of the MMS is to provide an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) with the required decision making and trajectory planning capabilities that would enable it to be self-directed and self-sufficient. The MMS continuously monitors for off-nominal conditions and initiates appropriate mitigating actions and trajectory changes, providing the UAS with a high degree of resilience to off-nominal conditions. nbsp;This proposal aims to develop the onboard real-time trajectory generation capability and associated decision making elements within Xwingrsquo;s MMS. Specifically, this proposal will focus on trajectory generation for (a) autonomous airborne collision avoidance consistent with any available Detect and Avoid Regulations, (b) emergency landing under total loss of thrust, and (c) associated decision making required to trigger the computation and execution of these trajectories/mission plans in a timely manner. These capabilities play a key role in enabling autonomous operations of new air travel modalities such as Urban Air Mobility and Regional Air Mobility. A key emphasis of this proposal is the development of these capabilities with the ultimate aim of being certified for use on Xwingrsquo;s commercial autonomous air cargo operations.nbsp;