AFWERX Agility Prime – A New Era of Aerospace

https://www.afrl.af.mil/News/Article/2850369/afwerx-agility-prime-a-new-era-of-aerospace/

AFWERX Agility Prime – A New Era of Aerospace

ARLINGTON, Texas (AFRL) – AFWERX Agility Prime, launched in April 2020, is the Air Force’s collaborative initiative to work with the industrial base on testing and experimentation, accelerating development of the commercial electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft industry, enabling resilient distributed logistics and sustainable mobility.

Agility Prime is a Department of the Air Force program and also includes collaboration with the Army for developing transformative vertical lift capabilities. In an effort to build upon collaboration and teamwork, AFWERX Agility Prime representatives made an appearance at the Air Force versus Army football game on November 6 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. With fans on both sides interested in the innovative efforts of both the Army and Air Force, this game offered the perfect stage for this shared ingenuity.

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https://brainchipinc.com/information-systems-labs-early-access-program/

“ISL has decided to use Akida and Edge-based learning as a tool to incorporate into their portfolio of research engineering and engineering solutions in large part due to our innovative capabilities and production-ready status that provides go-to-market advantages,” said Sean Hehir, BrainChip CEO. “We are pleased to be included as the AI- and Edge-based learning component of ISL’s research sponsored by AFRL. We feel that the combination of technologies will help expediate its deployment into the field.”

About AFRL and AFWERXAFRL and AFWERX have partnered to streamline the Small Business Innovation Research process in an attempt to speed up the experience, broaden the pool of potential applicants and decrease bureaucratic overhead. Beginning in SBIR 18.2, and now in J203-CS01, the Air Force has begun offering ‘The Open Topic’ SBIR/STTR program that is faster, leaner and open to a broader range of innovations.

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https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/1943021

Deep Learning Sensor Technology for Safe Flying Car Operations

Sensor technology that enables safe takeoff, landing, navigation, and Sense & Avoid (SAA) flight is paramount for Urban Air Mobility (UAM). The approach must be all-weather, day-night, low C-SWaP, and identify obstacles during flight (aircraft, UAS, birds) as well as during takeoff/landing (cables, buildings). The FAA advises that an air vehicle be able to Detect, Sense, and Avoid (DSA) other aircraft with detection ranges of 3 nmi or more. We are proposing an Artificial Intelligence Radar (AIR) solution that is all-weather, extremely lightweight and cost effective. It leverages a novel sensor technology, ISL’s state-of-the-art M&S tool RFView®, and the Simlat flight environment. RFView® was recently highlighted as an AFRL SBIR Success Story for its ability to dramatically reduce the need for expensive flight testing