Daedalean at PAS 2025: Pioneering AI-Driven Safety for the Future of Aviation

At their first Paris Air Show, Daedalean’s VP of Prod­uct, Josch­ka Hoe­fling, shares how AI and automa­tion are set to rev­o­lu­tion­ize pilot work­load, safe­ty, and the very foun­da­tions of future air mobil­i­ty.

A Land­mark Debut at Paris Air Show

The Paris Air Show 2025 marked a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for Daedalean, a lead­ing inno­va­tor at the inter­sec­tion of flight automa­tion, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, and crit­i­cal safe­ty appli­ca­tions.

For the first time, Daedalean had a pres­ence at this renowned gath­er­ing, con­nect­ing with glob­al avi­a­tion stake­hold­ers. Josch­ka Hoe­fling, Daedalean’s VP of Prod­uct, sat down with eVTOL Insights host Jason Pritchard to share the company’s mis­sion, cur­rent progress, and vision for the indus­try.

As Hoe­fling described: “Europe is com­ing togeth­er in Paris, every­body’s here. It’s a real­ly good oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet, exchange infor­ma­tion and just talk and see where every­body’s at.” Beyond net­work­ing, the Air Show pro­vides an invalu­able plat­form for Daedalean to com­mu­ni­cate its approach and advance­ments to both insid­ers and new­com­ers in the advanced aer­i­al mobil­i­ty sec­tor.

Daedalean’s Vision: Redefin­ing Pilot Work­load and Safe­ty

At its core, Daedalean is focused on reduc­ing pilot work­load by grad­u­al­ly trans­fer­ring more and more respon­si­bil­i­ties to cer­ti­fied tech­ni­cal sys­tems.

By har­ness­ing the pow­er of pro­pri­etary machine learn­ing algo­rithms, Daedalean aims to make sig­nif­i­cant strides in avi­a­tion safe­ty and effi­cien­cy. Their solu­tions are rig­or­ous­ly engi­neered to meet the exact­ing stan­dards of both Euro­pean and US reg­u­la­to­ry authorities—a process built on ear­ly, trans­par­ent dia­logue with cer­ti­fy­ing bod­ies to ensure com­pli­ance and trust.

Automa­tion, Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, and Trust

The avi­a­tion indus­try is inher­ent­ly cau­tious, espe­cial­ly with any­thing touch­ing pilot func­tions and pas­sen­ger safe­ty. Daedalean rec­og­nizes the immense respon­si­bil­i­ty and has embed­ded reg­u­la­to­ry engage­ment into its DNA.

From day one, the com­pa­ny sought open com­mu­ni­ca­tion with both EASA (Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency) and the FAA (Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion).

“What we’ve been doing from the very begin­ning is we’ve been seek­ing the direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the approv­ing author­i­ties to ensure that we’re actu­al­ly meet­ing the safe­ty tar­gets,” Hoe­fling explained. This clear reg­u­la­to­ry path­way is essen­tial for the accep­tance and adop­tion of machine learn­ing-dri­ven func­tions aboard air­craft.

Cur­rent Projects: Toward Detect and Avoid

Daedalean’s pri­ma­ry focus at present is devel­op­ing a cut­ting-edge “detect and avoid” system—an essen­tial build­ing block for both manned and unmanned flight oper­a­tions.

Their cur­rent sup­ple­men­tal type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (STC) project cen­ters on inte­grat­ing traf­fic detec­tion capa­bil­i­ties into heli­copters via cam­era sys­tems and machine learn­ing algo­rithms. With par­al­lel cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process­es under­way on both sides of the Atlantic, there is a sense of momen­tum and urgency.

“We are inte­grat­ing traf­fic detec­tion capa­bil­i­ties in there, where we have var­i­ous cam­eras, machine learn­ing traf­fic detec­tion algo­rithms run­ning, and we’re cur­rent­ly cer­ti­fy­ing that con­cur­rent­ly, both with EASA and the FAA,” said Hoe­fling. The goal: com­plete cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by the end of 2025, bring­ing auto­mat­ed sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness one step clos­er to oper­a­tional real­i­ty.

Real-World Demon­stra­tions: A Glimpse into the Next Gen­er­a­tion of Avi­a­tion

Beyond cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, Daedalean’s tech­nol­o­gy is already prov­ing itself in demand­ing, real-life sce­nar­ios. Recent live demon­stra­tions showed their sys­tem con­trol­ling a heli­copter on a mis­sion with GPS denied navigation—a sit­u­a­tion that is increas­ing­ly com­mon due to jam­ming and recep­tion issues. The tech­nol­o­gy autonomous­ly nav­i­gat­ed, searched, iden­ti­fied an unknown land­ing zone, and updat­ed flight plans on the fly, reduc­ing pilot involve­ment to a min­i­mum.

“It’s been a huge step for us,” Hoe­fling not­ed, “full flight con­trol, closed loop into the flight con­trol of a manned heli­copter… great­ly suc­cess­ful and a real­ly good expe­ri­ence as well.”

Look­ing Ahead: Beyond Traf­fic Detec­tion

While traf­fic detec­tion is a crit­i­cal mile­stone, Daedalean envi­sions much more. The next areas of focus include obsta­cle and wire detec­tion, mov­ing steadi­ly toward a com­pre­hen­sive suite of safe­ty solu­tions applic­a­ble to both tra­di­tion­al and next-gen­er­a­tion air­craft such as eVTOLs. Hoe­fling pas­sion­ate­ly artic­u­lat­ed the mis­sion: “We tru­ly believe that we can make a pos­i­tive impact, sav­ing pilots or pas­sen­ger or patient lives by pre­vent­ing acci­dents in the future.”

A New Era for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty

As Paris Air Show 2025 demon­strates, the avi­a­tion com­mu­ni­ty is enter­ing a turn­ing point. With star­tups like Daedalean lead­ing the charge, AI and automa­tion aren’t just buzz­words — they’re on the cusp of mak­ing oper­a­tional, life-sav­ing dif­fer­ences in the cock­pit. The com­ing years will show how fast and how far avi­a­tion will evolve, but one thing is clear: safer, smarter, and more autonomous skies are just around the cor­ner.

You can watch the full video inter­view by click­ing here.