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DUBAI AIRSHOW 2023: AIBOT to benefit from Honeywell’s advanced flight controls for its six-seater eVTOL aircraft

Hon­ey­well has been select­ed by Cal­i­forn­ian start­up AIBOT, to pro­vide its Com­pact Fly-By-Wire (cFBW) sys­tem to sup­port AIBOT’s eVTOL air­craft.

AIBOT was co-found­ed by Jer­ry Wang and RK Jia in 2022, and the team is build­ing an air­craft which will be pow­ered by eight elec­tric motors and accom­mo­date up to six pas­sen­gers and a pilot.

With max­i­mum take-off weight of 7,000 pounds, the air­craft has a tar­get max­i­mum range of 250 miles and a top cruise speed of 250 mph, mak­ing it suit­able for short-haul use cas­es between cities and met­ro­pol­i­tan areas across the globe.

Honeywell’s light­weight Com­pact Fly-By-Wire sys­tem, the size of a paper­back book, will pro­vide AIBOT with greater flex­i­bil­i­ty in air­craft design, with­out com­pro­mis­ing pow­er or safe­ty.

The sys­tem enables the removal of con­ven­tion­al mechan­i­cal link­ages con­trol­ling the effec­tors, stream­lin­ing main­te­nance pro­ce­dures, and reduc­ing costs through­out the entire life­cy­cle of an air­craft. 

“Wang, who is also Exec­u­tive Chair­man at AIBOT, said: “AIBOT is poised to rev­o­lu­tionise the urban air mobil­i­ty mar­ket by uti­liz­ing the lat­est in cut­ting-edge, safe­ty-crit­i­cal com­put­ing plat­forms, par­tic­u­lar­ly those which bol­ster the high-per­for­mance pro­cess­ing need­ed for the next-gen algo­rithms we devel­oped.

“Col­lab­o­rat­ing with Hon­ey­well is a huge step for­ward for us and will help us pow­er the most advanced soft­ware-dri­ven aiEV­TOL plat­form.” 

Hon­ey­well’s cFBW also enables seam­less remote oper­a­tion of the air­craft, trans­lat­ing instruc­tions from the aircraft’s oper­a­tor into flight con­trol com­mands on the air­craft.

The system’s enve­lope-lim­it­ing fea­ture guar­an­tees safe oper­a­tions, mak­ing it par­tic­u­lar­ly well-suit­ed for sta­bi­liz­ing unique­ly designed unmanned vehi­cles and deliv­er­ing a sta­ble fly­ing expe­ri­ence. 

David Shill­i­day, vice pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er, Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty, Hon­ey­well Aero­space, said: “Our Com­pact Fly-By-Wire sys­tem is a ready-now solu­tion to advance the future of sus­tain­able flight. It is derived from decades of exper­tise pro­vid­ing sim­i­lar sys­tems for com­mer­cial air­lin­ers. The col­lab­o­ra­tion will enable AIBOT to realise its vision of cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able and effi­cient trans­porta­tion ecosys­tem.”  

In 2024, AIBOT will kick off the pro­duc­tion of ful­ly autonomous heavy unmanned air­craft for indus­tries like car­go, agri­cul­ture, high-speed inspec­tion, and med­ical deliv­er­ies.

This endeav­our shares its sys­tem archi­tec­ture with AIBOT’s manned air­craft, for which the inau­gur­al flight will be in 2025. Full prod­uct deliv­ery of each air­craft is expect­ed by 2028.  

eVTOL Insights’ Exec­u­tive Edi­tor Jason Pritchard spoke exclu­sive­ly with AIBOT and Hon­ey­well at this week’s Dubai Air­show fol­low­ing this announce­ment. Keep an eye on our web­site and social media chan­nels for more insight on AIBOT’s plans for the future.

Pic­ture cap­tion: From L‑R: Ramey Jamil, Head of Air­craft Sys­tems, AIBOT; Jer­ry Wang, Exec­u­tive Chair­man, AIBOT; Tay­lor Alber­stadt, Senior Direc­tor, Glob­al Sales & Account Man­age­ment, Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty, Hon­ey­well Aero­space; Ryan Lees, Pres­i­dent, EMEAI Com­mer­cial Aero­space, Hon­ey­well Aero­space and John Clark­son, Chief Engi­neer, AIBOT.

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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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