As a cornerstone of the CapSci engineering approach, there is no replacement for practical, hands-on experience. Whether we are writing requirements for a data processing system, creating dashboards for situational awareness, designing an interface for a new ASTERIX format, or integrating a new radio onto a drone, practical knowledge of the underlying components is invaluable. Our team includes multiple individuals with over twenty years in the aviation industry as well as some with significant experience in related technical industries. With so many years of experience, we know it is important to prioritize investing in the hardware and laboratory equipment to optimize and validate our theoretical assumptions.
One example of our ever growing resources and experience is evident in our work with UAS. Having various UAS platforms at our disposal has been key to many of the projects we are currently working. From our never ending search for the best command and control datalinks to research on how best to provide complete situational awareness to the pilot in command, having multiple platforms of various types has been crucial in our work.
Why is this range of resources so important? UAS platforms come in all shapes and sizes and range from completely open-source to fully proprietary. Even though two platforms may utilize similar protocols or components there are always nuances about the implementation that make extensive testing on the bench an absolute necessity. Something as simple as sending a single stream of serial data over an off the shelf radio can be complicated by the intricacies of the protocol that the manufacturer selected. Just because individual components supports the interface you want and the bandwidth and latency requirements that you need doesn’t mean that the aircraft and radio will work well together.
Another example of how our practical hands-on experiences is so crucial to finding the right solution is evident in our approach to finding the right software solution. Our team has experience both in evaluating Commercial-Off-the-Shelf(COTS) as a viable solution and developing custom software from the ground up. Our team has solved a wide array of requests from providing real time statistics such as network traffic load on unique field setups to creating custom dashboards for information on large volumes of real time data. The end goal for us is to always provide the right size, cost efficient, and complete solution for the problem at hand.
The Aviation Industry is constantly evolving, especially with the growing usage of UAS, we continue to broaden our engagement with the relevant technology . As the airspace is modernized to meet new exciting horizons with Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM), we feel that our experience and resources are setting us up for a bright future in helping create a safer and better airspace in the years to come.
