GE Aviation and Auterion Team Up for Drone OS
Drone operators and manufacturers have reason to smile – GE Aviation and Auterion have announced their partnership with the aim of a full stack platform for drone manufacturers and operators looking to scale commercial drone operations.
A full stack platform for drone manufacturers and operators @GEAviation @Auterion Click To Tweet
The platform aims to serve as the foundation on which drone operators can scale beyond visual line of sight and meet future regulations.
The partnership will result in a solid platform by combining airborne autopilot and application computing hardware, flight management, safety management and integration by bringing together GE Avaiation’s Aircraft System avionics platform and Auterion’s Enterprise PX4 operating system.
A joint press release from the companies stated: “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 and within complex airspace and obstacle environments.”
Working in tandem would mean that while GE Aviation provides the avionics hardware, application computing, flight management and integration into airframes, Auterion’s operating system which runs on-vehicle in the cloud and in the ground station will make available core software infrastructure including flight peripherals and camera integrations, data networking, precision navigation and compliance with traffic management.
In fact GE Aviation and Auterion have already begun testing the hardware and software platform over the last three weeks at Reno-Stead airport in Nevada.
GE Aviation is one of GE’s better performing subsidiaries- it has been doing well since surviving the corporate shakeup last year that left parent company GE struggling with debt and growth in various units including GE Power, and spinning out GE Digital into an independent industrial IoT company.
Apart from its presence in the drone market, GE Aviation is a formidable player in the airline industry too, producing aviation jet and turboprop engines and other mechanical systems for aircraft. In the past the company has teamed with Teradata and Tableau on various data sharing endeavors.
Now with this tie-up with Auterion for a specialized drone operations platform the future for GE Aviation and that of the drone industry seems to be looking up.
