Embention has more than 15 years of experience in developing high performance avionics systems and motor controllers for electric aircraft and eVTOL in compliance with DO178C and DO254 aeronautical certification standards, and collaborate with leading eVTOL manufacturing companies such as the English company Skyfly.
Skyfly’s electric/hybrid Axe eVTOL is a manned fixed-wing aircraft designed to glide and take off vertically without the need to rotate wings or engines by integrating the Veronte Autopilot 4x for advanced flight controls for automatic stabilisation.
The main features of the eVTOL Axe are canard fixed wing design, 9:1 glide ratio, and non-rotating wings and engines to reduce complexity, failure and weight, as well as Veronte Autopilot 4x redundant flight control system, four redundant flight systems, eight electric motors (two per wing for hover redundancy), and 16 redundant lithium-ion batteries.
Axe is scheduled to complete its first manned flights later this year and start production in 2024, and will operate like a private helicopter, avoiding traffic jams, reducing travel time and minimising pollution.
Autopilot 4x compliance with DO178C and DO254 enables eVTOL certification for integration into UAM environments. In addition, the system has successfully passed environmental tests according to DO160 / MIL-STD-810 and provides mean time between failure (MTBF) data, Acceptance Test Report (ATR) and other certification documentation.
It is designed for integration into critical systems and suitable for eVTOL by incorporating advanced functions for both fully autonomous flight and fly-by-wire flight control by a pilot.
The redundancy of the Veronte 4x Autopilot is managed by a different arbitration system, there is no single point of failure, and it is reliable even in the event of arbitrator failure.
The design of Axe focuses on pilot safety, and in addition to using an advanced flight controller such as the Veronte Autopilot 4x, the aircraft is integrated with components that have been extensively tested in traditional aeronautical design.
In October 2020, Embention launched its Veronte Autopilot 4x, a redundant flight controller ready for eVTOL aircraft certification and capable of controlling unmanned fixed-wing, multirotor and hybrid VTOL aircraft.
Skyfly’s two-seat Axe EVTOL aircraft can take off and land conventionally in just 50 metres, but it can also take off and land vertically without a runway, like the top deck of a yacht.