GE Aviation and Auterion team on commercial drone platform

Photo: iStock.com/valio 84sl, via FAA

Team to provide all-in-one hardware and software platform for commercial drones.

GE Aviation and Auterion are integrating the Auterion Enterprise PX4 operating system on GE Aviation’s Unmanned Aircraft System avionics platform.

The companies signed a teaming agreement to provide a comprehensive hardware and software solution for drone manufacturers and operators seeking to enable commercial drone operations at scale.

The hardware and software platform is designed with commercial vehicle original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and service providers in mind. It is being displayed at Auterion’s booth (#2009) at AUVSI Xponential, taking place this week in Chicago.

The teaming enables a full-stack solution with airborne autopilot and application computing hardware, flight management, safety management and integration. GE Aviation is providing the avionics hardware, application computing, flight management and integration into airframes. Auterion is providing Enterprise PX4, the operating system that runs on the vehicle, in the cloud and the ground station.

The core architecture of the hardware and software platform has been implemented with the objective of supporting developers through global open software standards while maintaining an independent and authoritative safety controller.

The combination of the two supports long-term flexibility and a high level of design assurance to enable commercial drone operations beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) and within complex airspace and obstacle environments.

Flight testing of the hardware and software platform took place over the last three weeks at Reno-Stead airport in Reno, Nevada.

“In demonstrating a seamless integration of ground, cloud and airborne components, we’ve reached another milestone in helping to unlock the value in autonomous and UAS advanced operations,” said Alan Caslavka, president of Avionics Systems for GE Aviation. “Auterion’s open standards leadership and cooperative legacy with the developer community is the foundation to scale a sustainable solution critical for commercial drones.”

“We are excited about the collaboration with GE Aviation that allows us to offer our operating system on high reliability hardware to meet future regulations,” said Kevin Sartori, Co-Founder of Auterion. “With this collaboration, the combined solution will significantly reduce barriers commercial cargo drones face flying in manned airspace or inspection drones to flying in urban areas.”