Evitado TACFI

In the current Phase II (PII), Evitado is developing with its subcontractor TowFLEXX Miltech a solution for an MQ-9 Reaper automated towing collision detection vehicle, for test with Airmen and DAF maintainers from the 49th Maintenance Group (MXG) at Holloman AFB and solution deployment in Air Force operational environments. By provision of automated stopping signals based on collision warning zones, linerecognition and monitoring, and trajectory planning for anticipated aircraft towing paths which are developed in this PII, the automated towing collision detection solution will help maintainers strengthen their situational awareness and prevent accidents during towing. Thesolution will enable to reduce MQ-9 tow teams from 5 Airmen for forward towing use cases, and 6 Airmen for push backs or rearward towing use cases, to essentially a one-person tow team, providing a reduced footprint, not only in-garrison, but deployed and especially insupport of DAF Agile Combat Employment (ACE) maneuvers and multi-capable airman (MCA) programs for a more agile Air Force, ultimately resulting in increased operational safety and significantly reduced damage to aircraft. After successful integration of the LiDAR sensor hardware into the modified towing vehicle design, Evitado is completing the adaptation of its commercially available software for theintegrated collision warning zones at the present time. This software adaptation will provide the functionality of automated collision avoidance by stopping or bypassing obstacles on the towing path. In February 2025, Evitado and its subcontractor TowFLEXX Miltech willperform a live demonstration of the LiDAR-enhanced MQ-9 Reaper towing vehicle prototype with maintenance airmen from the 49th MXG at Holloman AFB, to test how the adapted software is able at the present development stage to stop the MQ-9 Reaper towing vehicle if obstacles are on the towing path or bypass these obstacles.