, the manufacturer of innovative, high-performance radars for government and commercial markets, announced that its radar platform has been selected by two Technology Capability Level 4 (TCL4) awardees of NASA’s UAS Traffic Management (UTM) program – Lone Star UAS Center of Excellence & Innovation at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, and Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems Unmanned Aviation Safety (NIAS-UAS) Center of Excellence.
NASA’s UTM project has progressed to TCL4 which will demonstrate and test UAS missions in higher-density urban areas as well as technologies to manage large-scale operations. Echodyne’s inclusion in these TCL4 awards follows from previous TCL2 and TCL3 project work at multiple FAA test sites across the US.
One of the keys to opening the skies to UAS business opportunities is situational awareness technologies that promote safe mission operations. In dense urban areas, commercial UAS must be able to detect and avoid other aircraft and obstacles either through onboard sensors and systems or remotely through ground-based sensors and communications. For manned aircraft, the pilot performs this detect and avoid function. For unmanned aircraft, there needs to be a technological solution supported by an appropriate regulatory framework. Echodyne’s radar platform offers a technology solution for sensors mounted on commercial UAS or deployed along UAS corridors and other pre-defined UAS traffic frameworks.
As demonstrated in every national airspace every day, radar is the indispensable sensor for managing airspace mission safety. The EchoGuard radar is an innovative ground-based airspace management sensor that provides market-leading detection and tracking performance for its compact size and low weight, power, and cost. The EchoFlight airborne radar provides similar detect-and-avoid (DAA) benefits when mounted on commercial UAS airframes. Together, Echodyne radars offer unprecedented price-performance to help advance the UAS industry.
“We are proud to have worked with the NASA UTM team and FAA test sites for the past several years and are pleased our radar performance brings us back for increasingly more challenging mission parameters,” said Eben Frankenberg, CEO of Echodyne. “Our unique MESA radar technology increases airspace safety and elevates mission performance across the UAS market.”
Source: Press Release