BETA Technologies builds out autonomous capabilities

The company stated earlier: “BETA Technologies (BETA) is accelerating the development of autonomous capabilities to enable BETA aircraft to fly faster, further, and carry more to serve an increased scope of critical defense and commercial applications. In addition to years of internal autonomy system development, BETA is collaborating with Near Earth Autonomy to support development and integration. BETA’s simple and reliable electric and hybrid VTOL aircraft are designed with fly-by-wire (FBW) flight control technology, providing an ideal platform to enable both crewed and uncrewed operations. BETA has been developing and flying autonomous capabilities for the past several years, conducting more than 1,000 hours of uncrewed flights on a fleet of subscale aircraft with a demonstrated range of more than 158 nautical miles (182 statute miles) on a single charge. Near Earth adds expertise in perception, guidance, path planning and certifiable autonomous systems designed for a range of mission sets from its experience supplying autonomous systems with the U.S. military and industry OEMs.”