Wisk selects Safran’s SkyNaute inertial navigation system for its Gen 6 autonomous eVTOL aircraft

After a busy day of news on day one of the 2023 Paris Air Show yes­ter­day (Mon­day), Wisk has announced it has select­ed Safran Elec­tron­ics & Defense to sup­ply Sky­Naute™ iner­tial nav­i­ga­tion sys­tems for its Gen­er­a­tion 6 autonomous, all-elec­tric air taxi. 

Based on a dis­rup­tive and mature Safran-patent­ed tech­nol­o­gy, the HRG Crys­tal™ Hemi­spher­i­cal Res­onator Gyro­scope, Sky­Naute™ com­bines high per­for­mance and reli­a­bil­i­ty, in the most com­pact form fac­tor on the mar­ket.

With very high lev­els of integri­ty and accu­ra­cy, even when GNSS sig­nals are absent or jammed, Sky­Naute™ hybrid iner­tial nav­i­ga­tion sys­tem is designed to ensure the pre­cise tra­jec­to­ry of the Gen­er­a­tion 6 self-fly­ing air taxi, dur­ing all flight phas­es, lead­ing to an opti­mum flight safe­ty. 

Bri­an Yutko, CEO of Wisk, said: “Wisk is build­ing and cer­ti­fy­ing the first com­mer­cial autonomous air­craft, and the high integri­ty avion­ics and soft­ware stack that enables it. We are thrilled to be deploy­ing Safran’s HRG tech­nol­o­gy as part of this. Our ini­tial test­ing has con­firmed the Sky­Naute tech­nol­o­gy is a step change in nav­i­ga­tion sys­tem per­for­mance and we look for­ward to deploy­ing it on our 6th Gen­er­a­tion air taxi.” 

Safran Elec­tron­ics & Defense is a long-stand­ing leader in iner­tial nav­i­ga­tion, with more than 70 years of exper­tise in all under­ly­ing tech­nolo­gies. Ful­ly indus­tri­alised, the HRG tech­nol­o­gy has already demon­strat­ed its capa­bil­i­ties for the most demand­ing civ­il and mil­i­tary appli­ca­tions in all envi­ron­ments: land, air, sea and space. 

Franck Saudo, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, Safran Elec­tron­ics & Defense, added: “We are very excit­ed to work with Wisk Aero. We share the same com­mit­ments to push­ing the bound­aries of inno­va­tion while main­tain­ing the high­est lev­el of safe­ty. By lever­ag­ing Safran Elec­tron­ics & Defense’s cut­ting-edge iner­tial tech­nol­o­gy with Sky­Naute™, we will pro­vide Wisk with the most advanced solu­tion for their autonomous air­craft.” 

Wisk’s Gen­er­a­tion 6 air­craft is the world’s first autonomous, all-elec­tric, four-seat eVTOL air taxi designed for pas­sen­ger trans­port.

Through a mul­ti­fac­eted approach — includ­ing autonomous flight with human over­sight, a sim­pli­fied design with few­er mov­ing parts, ful­ly redun­dant sys­tems, and no sin­gle point of fail­ure — Wisk’s air­craft is being designed to meet or exceed the high­est pos­si­ble avi­a­tion stan­dard.