Recently concluded NASA tests prove that compact radars built by Echodyne will allow drones to fly autonomously in crowded airspace.
Last month, Kirkland, Wash.-based Echodyne teamed with NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California for tests of an AiRanger drone built by American Aerospace Technologies Inc. The drone flew by itself over 14.5 miles of pipeline, simulating the type of inspection mission that commercial drones are expected to perform in the not-too-distant future.
During the test flight, the drone used Echodyne’s remarkably small radars to detect and avoid “non-cooperating” aircraft on its own.
Echodyne’s ability to build fully functioning radars that are about the size and weight of a typical tablet computer opens up new applications for drones, such as self-guiding air taxis and cargo-haulers.
“That’s our fundamental breakthrough,” said Leo McCloskey, vice president of marketing. “Autonomy is the future. Radar is the absolutely essential sensor you need in the array.”
But Echodyne says it needs the Federal Aviation Administration to finish writing regulations for unmanned aircraft before its business will really take off.
“We’re trying to establish what the rules are,” said McCloskey. “We’re trying to create that safety package that would satisfy the FAA.”
The entire industry is waiting for regulators to determine what the requirements will be, McCloskey said.
“All the big brands of the world are doing the same sort of dance,” he said, “doing trials and experimenting with regulators.”
Echodyne was spun out of Nathan Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures in 2014. The company’s investors include Bill Gates, Vulcan Capital, Madrona Venture Group, and others. It holds a license to use Intellectual Venture’s patents on metamaterials, which are artificially structured materials used to control and manipulate a range of physical phenomena, including how they reflect electromagnetic radiation.
In theory, this could someday include manipulating the way light beams bounce off objects, rendering them essentially invisible.
But in the here-and-now, using metamaterials allows Echodyne to build radars that are far smaller and require significantly less power than traditional radars — and they’re cheaper.
McCloskey said the federal government spent close to a billion dollars trying to shrink phased-array radars but failed. The Echodyne approach represents a “step-function change” that provides drone builders and operators with radars that are “the right size, weight and power and the right cost.”
“We’ve demonstrated that we know how to build the right sort of radar for this sort of mission,” he said.
While the company is waiting for the FAA to finish its work, it is moving ahead to produce and sell its radars for ground-based applications.
Echodyne’s radars are cheap enough — under $50,000 — that users can string them up around areas or events that need to be protected, particularly those that are susceptible to attacks from hostile drones.
Other users are experimenting with adapting the technology for use in boats; Echodyne’s radars can help unmanned boats and barges sail between islands.
The attention and activity is good for business, McCloskey said. “Volume is definitely picking up,” he said. “A lot more companies from different parts of the world are reaching out.”
