Alex Foessel, former Director of Technology and Innovation for John Deere, has joined Near Earth Autonomy as Senior Director, Market Strategy. With extensive experience developing and commercializing robotics solutions, Foessel will lead business and product strategy as Near Earth expands its technology across new industries and applications.

With support from NAVAIR, Near Earth Autonomy and Kaman Aerospace have partnered to develop an intelligent autonomy system for the K-MAX helicopter, a large-scale transport aircraft. The capability developed will be applicable to large aircraft that can take off and land vertically with a broad set of commercial and military applications.

Much of our national infrastructure, private and public, needs inspection and repair.
Underserved markets with a well-defined need for these inspection tools include transportation infrastructure, energy, heavy industry, mining, and aerospace. Effective inspection, especially structural non-destructive testing, is a key part of planning repairs and avoiding mishaps, and better tools are needed to catch potential failure.

Active-duty Army soldiers and Marines used Near Earth’s technology to safely
execute resupply test missions in an operational demonstration last summer. The technology enables obstacle avoidance for safe flight and landing for reliable cargo delivery in dynamic environments. 

NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Air Traffic Management (UTM) system is providing industry leaders with the opportunity to demonstrate to regulators that multiple aircraft can be flow in simultaneously in complex urban environments. Near Earth’s drone repeatedly demonstrated the ability to react to contingencies that required flying to the closest designated landing site and finding a safe place to land. 

CHICAGO – Boeing [NYSE: BA] announced its investment in Near Earth Autonomy, a Pittsburgh-based company focused on developing a portfolio of technologies that enable safe and reliable autonomous flight.

Santa Clara, Calif. and Pittsburgh, PA – A³, the advanced projects and partnerships outpost of Airbus in Silicon Valley, has entered into a contract with Pittsburgh’s Near Earth Autonomy, a leader in autonomy for air vehicles, to use Near Earth’s landing zone assessment technology in Vahana, its electric, self-piloted vehicle project. Near Earth’s technology will be a component of the overall sense-and-avoid system for Vahana’s full-scale vehicle to be demonstrated by the end of 2017.

PITTSBURGH, PA — Near Earth Autonomy, a leader in autonomy solutions for unmanned aircraft, announces the successful award through the NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to support NASA’s mission to introduce unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the National Airspace (NAS).

PITTSBURGH – Near Earth Autonomy announces a $754,000 award through NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program to develop Safe50, a software module for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), that will enable safe and robust Unmanned Aircraft (UA) flight, particularly during the first and last 50 feet of the take-off and landing phases.

PITTSBURGH—The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) has selected the team of Near Earth Autonomy Inc. (Near Earth), Clemson University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center to create a system that will accelerate plant breeding compared to traditional methods, with the goal of creating a new, sustainable bioenergy source.

PITTSBURGH—The Department of the Navy, through its Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division, has awarded a contract to Near Earth Autonomy Inc. to develop and prove feasibility of test and certification techniques for autonomous guidance and navigation algorithms.

PITTSBURGH—The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a development contract to Near Earth Autonomy Inc. (Near Earth) to create a system that will enable small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to fly safely beyond line-of-sight.

PITTSBURGH—The Small Business Innovation Research program (SBIR), funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), has awarded a development contract to Near Earth Autonomy Inc. (Near Earth) to expand the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operating in the national airspace, in particular to enable safe take-off and landing in constrained environments.

PITTSBURGH—The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has awarded a development contract to Near Earth Autonomy Inc. (Near Earth) to create a system of aerial robotic scouts capable of exploring an unknown indoor or tunnel-like environment.

PITTSBURGH—The Office of Naval Research has awarded a development contract to a team headed by Aurora Flight Sciences and Near Earth Autonomy Inc. (Near Earth) to advance technology developed in Phase I of its Autonomous Aerial Cargo/Utility System (AACUS) program. Sanjiv Singh, CEO and Chief Scientist at Near Earth will serve as a co-Principal Investigator for Phase II.

PITTSBURGH—The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a development contract to Near Earth Autonomy Inc. (Near Earth) to produce technology capable of constructing three-dimensional (3D) models of scenes accurately, rapidly, and at low cost.

PITTSBURGH—The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has awarded a development contract to Near Earth Autonomy Inc. (Near Earth) to advance Low-Light, Low Cost Passive Terrain Sensing.

PITTSBURGH--Unmanned aerial vehicles will soon become an integral part of the US Navy's operations, requiring these vehicles to be capable of taking off from and landing on ships at sea. Precision ship-relative navigation (PS-RN) in degraded visual environment conditions, possibly in the absence of GPS, is a key enabling technology to realize this capability.