Khalifa University, Manta Aircraft Collaborate “on Innovative Flight Systems for AAM”

Abu Dhabi’s Khal­i­fa Uni­ver­si­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy has signed an agree­ment with Ital­ian-based Man­ta Air­craft this week, to devel­op inno­v­a­tive flight sys­tems for the ANN eV/STOL (Ver­ti­cal and Short Take Off and Land­ing) Air­craft, reports a press release.

The agree­ment is “the first step of a mul­ti-year pro­gram aim­ing to co-devel­op a new fam­i­ly of air­craft for Urban and Region­al Air Mobil­i­ty (UAM/RAM), and part of the port­fo­lio of the Cen­tre for Flight Sys­tems Research and Train­ing Cen­tre, FALCON, Khal­i­fa University’s Intel­li­gent Aero­space Sys­tems Group (IASG),” explains the release. The agree­ment was signed by Pro­fes­sor Sir John O’Reilly, Pres­i­dent of Khal­i­fa Uni­ver­si­ty, and Lucas March­esi­ni, CEO of Man­ta Air­craft.

The aim of this col­lab­o­ra­tion is to focus “on Sense-and-Avoid (SAA), Guid­ance, Nav­i­ga­tion, and Con­trol (GNC), and Human-Machine Inter­face and Inter­ac­tions (HMI2) for the inno­v­a­tive Man­ta-ANN air­craft plat­form, to be used in all mod­els of the scal­able tech­nol­o­gy,” con­tin­ues the release.

Khal­i­fa Uni­ver­si­ty

Pro­fes­sor Sir John O’Reilly remarked, “This col­lab­o­ra­tion is expect­ed to strength­en the UAM/RAM inno­va­tion ecosys­tem in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates.  As a stake­hold­er in the Smart and Autonomous Vehi­cle Indus­tries (SAVI) clus­ter ini­tia­tive in Abu Dhabi, we believe the knowl­edge and exper­tise gained from this project will also have broad­er appli­ca­tions beyond UAM/RAM, extend­ing to sec­tors like con­ven­tion­al avi­a­tion, auto­mo­tive and future green ener­gy stor­age and man­age­ment.”

Lucas March­esi­ni, added, “After enter­ing the SAVI clus­ter, as part of the Abu Dhabi Invest­ment Office, we look for­ward to a suc­cess­ful part­ner­ship with the FALCON Cen­tre of Khal­i­fa Uni­ver­si­ty. At Man­ta Air­craft, we believe the UAE is well posi­tioned to become an ear­ly adopter of AAM vehi­cles and ser­vices.”

Led by the pri­ma­ry researcher at Khal­i­fa University’s FALCON Cen­tre, Dr Rober­to Saba­ti­ni, the Cen­tre con­tributes to the UAE aero­space and avi­a­tion inno­va­tion ecosys­tem, align­ing with the Gov­ern­men­t’s pri­or­i­ties for sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth in the strate­gic field of aero­space and avi­a­tion sys­tems. 

In this rapid­ly evolv­ing indus­tri­al sec­tor, Man­ta Air­craft and the ANN col­lab­o­ra­tive research project will focus on the design, devel­op­ment, test and eval­u­a­tion (DDT&E) of cut­ting-edge avion­ics tech­nolo­gies for high­ly automated/autonomous flight and sus­tain­able air mobil­i­ty oper­a­tions.

Dr Rober­to Saba­ti­ni com­ment­ed, “I am con­vinced this project will accel­er­ate the uptake of advanced dig­i­tal flight sys­tem tech­nolo­gies in the UAE in the strate­gic sec­tors of urban and region­al air mobil­i­ty. The con­tract is a key mile­stone for our part­ner­ship and opens-up unique oppor­tu­ni­ties for fur­ther devel­op­ments both in the UAE and glob­al­ly.”

Pro­fes­sor Sir John O’Reilly

The release adds, “The knowl­edge and exper­tise gen­er­at­ed will have broad­er appli­ca­tions beyond UAM/RAM, extend­ing to sec­tors like con­ven­tion­al avi­a­tion, auto­mo­tive or future green ener­gy stor­age and man­age­ment. Thus, this strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion will sup­port the estab­lish­ment of a robust and pro­lif­ic inno­va­tion ecosys­tem with­in the UAE.”

By com­bin­ing the inno­v­a­tive Man­ta ANN plat­form with Khal­i­fa Uni­ver­si­ty’s research exper­tise and expe­ri­ence, the col­lab­o­ra­tion aims to con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the evo­lu­tion of the sus­tain­able smart mobil­i­ty in the UAE.

For more infor­ma­tion

www.ku.ac.ae

www.mantaaircraft.com

(Top image: The Sign­ing Cer­e­mo­ny)

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