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Honeywell focuses new business unit on Urban Air Mobility and Unmanned Aerial Systems

Hon­ey­well has formed a new busi­ness unit ded­i­cat­ed to the grow­ing Unmanned Aer­i­al Sys­tems (UAS) and Urban Air Mobil­i­ty (UAM) mar­kets.

Mak­ing the announce­ment yes­ter­day (Mon­day), the UAS busi­ness unit will con­tin­ue Honeywell’s momen­tum and lead­er­ship in these emerg­ing mar­kets, util­is­ing its soft­ware, ser­vices and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion exper­tise to meet cus­tomers’ needs in these mar­kets.

The new organ­i­sa­tion will also fur­ther expand Honeywell’s grow­ing port­fo­lio of UAM solu­tions, and is heav­i­ly focused on soft­ware devel­op­ment, dri­ving rapid devel­op­ment and test­ing of new prod­ucts like:

  • A “fly-by-wire” autopi­lot sys­tem that auto­mat­i­cal­ly ensures air­craft sta­bil­i­ty even if the pilot is ‘hands off’ for extend­ed peri­ods of time
  • Detect-and-avoid algo­rithms that auto­mat­i­cal­ly fly an air­craft around oncom­ing traf­fic
  • Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence soft­ware that tracks land­ing zones for pre­cise ver­ti­cal land­ings every time

Mike Mad­sen, Pres­i­dent and CEO, Hon­ey­well Aero­space, said: “Urban Air Mobil­i­ty and Unmanned Aer­i­al Sys­tems will play an increas­ing role in the future of aero­space, with poten­tial appli­ca­tions in all-elec­tric urban air taxi vehi­cles, hybrid-elec­tric unmanned car­go drones, option­al­ly pilot­ed air­planes, deliv­ery drones and every­thing in between.

“Hon­ey­well has already con­tributed many tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments to these mar­kets, and is well posi­tioned to con­tin­ue grow­ing our port­fo­lio to meet cus­tomer needs and help shape the future of autonomous avi­a­tion and urban trans­port.”

Equipped with its own engi­neer­ing and sales resources, the UAS busi­ness unit will devel­op new prod­ucts and ser­vices unique­ly required for these mar­kets. It will also act as a sys­tems inte­gra­tor for all Hon­ey­well prod­ucts and ser­vices that could be used in this indus­try.

These offer­ings include air­craft sys­tems such as avion­ics, elec­tric and hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion and ther­mal man­age­ment, flight ser­vices such as unmanned air traf­fic man­age­ment, and ground oper­a­tions ser­vices such as pre­dic­tive air­craft main­te­nance ana­lyt­ics.

Beyond tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, this busi­ness will be a sin­gle point of con­tact for inno­v­a­tive air­craft design­ers or oper­a­tors to eas­i­ly do busi­ness with Hon­ey­well.

Stéphane Fymat, Vice Pres­i­dent and Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of the new­ly-formed busi­ness, added: “We’re see­ing the dawn of a new era in avi­a­tion, and Hon­ey­well is at the fore­front.

“By form­ing this new organ­i­sa­tion, we will be able to har­ness the pow­er of our engi­neer­ing resources and know-how to trans­form urban air taxis, drone deliv­ery of parcels and all forms of autonomous flight from a future vision into an every­day real­i­ty.”

Hon­ey­well is a lead­ing provider of sys­tems for urban air taxi and car­go vehi­cles as well as oth­er types of air­craft, includ­ing inte­grat­ed avion­ics, flight con­trols, elec­tric and hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion, actu­a­tion, and cab­in envi­ron­men­tal con­trol sys­tems.

The com­pa­ny col­lab­o­rates active­ly with oth­er indus­try lead­ers, such as Jaunt Air Mobil­i­ty, Pip­istrel, Ver­ti­cal Aero­space and Volo­copter. Beyond UAM, dis­cus­sions are also under­way with cus­tomers pur­su­ing oth­er unmanned flight oper­a­tions, such as drone pack­age deliv­ery.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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