Xwing Remotely Operated Large Cargo Trails and Detect and Avoid Testing

Xwing along with the Air Force and partners at AFWERX are proposing to conduct a series of flight trials with Xwing autonomous flight technology retrofitted onto a Cessna Caravan aircraft. The Air Force and Xwing will work together to define a detailed mission CONOPS that aligns with core Air Force needs and to ensure we collect relevant data. The initial discussions with AFWERX on the CONOPS entail routine cargo operations leveraging remote pilots. Once the CONOPS is complete, the teams will conduct flight safety reviews and then begin real world flight trails to test various portions of the mission and the technology to validate readiness level and better define future system requirements. The areas of testing will include auto pre flight checks, auto taxi, auto take off, cruise maneuvers, various approaches, auto landing, remote operator communications etc. We will also test in different airport environments, different environmental conditions etc. Also as part of these tests, we will test Xwing’s airborne detect and avoid capability to ensure its performance will meed mission needs on the Cessna Caravan. At the completion of this work, AFWERX, the Air Force will have a deep understanding of the technology, a validated CONOPS for real operations, future requirements and a path to deploy.