Air Force Awards Xwing Autonomous Flight System Development Contract

Xwing and the U.S. Air Force have begun autonomous flight trials of the firm’s Superpilot flight control system aboard a Cessna 208 Caravan.

Jack Daleo

Thursday, May 11, 2023 at 06:22 PM ET

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Xwing and the U.S. Air Force have begun autonomous flight trials of the firm’s Superpilot flight control system aboard a Cessna 208 Caravan. [Courtesy: Xwing]

Key Takeaways:

Xwing secured a Phase II SBIR contract with the U.S. Air Force’s AFWERX Prime program to conduct 21-month autonomous flight trials of its "Superpilot" system on a Cessna 208 Caravan.
The "Superpilot" system offers fully autonomous navigation, obstacle avoidance, learns from flight data, and is designed to be transferable across various aircraft for military logistics, surveillance, and medevac.
Currently undergoing FAA certification as the first large UAS with AI to meet airworthiness standards comparable to passenger aircraft, Superpilot aims to enable fully remote cargo operations for Xwing's commercial fleet and ultimately operate without an onboard pilot.

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Bay Area-based Xwing, which already boasts contracts with NASA and the FAA, may have just nabbed its most important partnership yet.

The autonomous aviation firm on Thursday announced it had been awarded a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract with the U.S. Air Force’s AFWERX Prime program, an initiative launched in 2020 to speed the commercialization of emerging markets—and to give the Air Force a pipeline for groundbreaking technology.