MicroPilot Integrates Autonomous Sense & Avoid System for UAV Operations

MicroPilot announced the successful integration of FLARM’s Sense and Avoid system with its autopilot.

This integration grants clients a reliable autonomous collision avoidance option for fully autonomous UAV operations.

With any form of autonomous vehicle, a primary concern is safely avoiding collisions with other craft…without the need for human intervention.

A sense and avoid system allows a UAV to do exactly that. Thus, it dramatically reduces operational risks and the need for human monitoring.

What is FLARM?

FLARM is a traffic awareness and collision avoidance technology used by light aircraft and UAVs.

When integrated with MicroPilot’s autopilot, the system alerts the autopilot of nearby aircraft, along with its velocity and altitude. The autopilot uses the information to avoid the aircraft. Thus, it autonomously prevents a collision without a single input from the human operator.

With increasingly crowded airspace and the popularity of UAVs, a reliable sense and avoid system is quickly becoming a necessity. This is especially true for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) and other autonomous operations.

This new system should give operators the confidence to use their UAVs to the full extent of their abilities.

“FLARM has been in use for over a decade helping manned aircraft avoid midair collisions,” says FLARM. “We are very happy to see that UAVs are the next type of vehicle that benefit from FLARM, and that UAVs are becoming visible to manned aircraft.”

Sense and Avoid technology

This integration may give UAV manufacturers the confidence to market larger and longer-range UAVs. Consequently, it also gives operators the confidence to conduct long-range BVLOS operation. Combined, this technology furthers the utility and viability of UAVs.

About MicroPilot

Started in 1994, with 1000 clients in over 85 countries, MicroPilot is the world leader in professional autopilots for UAVs and MAVs. MicroPilot offers a family of lightweight UAV autopilots that can fly fixed-wing, transitional, helicopter, and Multirotor UAVs. MicroPilot also provides complementary products such as the XTENDERmp SDK, and trueHWIL2.

Shop MicroPilot’s line of autopilots at Unmanned Systems Source.