Autonomous flying: Value creation and future security through AI

The development of autonomous and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) opens up enormous value creation potential for Bavaria. New business areas such as urban air mobility (UAM) and innovative drone technologies are on the cusp of widespread application.

Revolutionary fields of application

Unmanned aerial systems - individually or in swarms - enable a wide range of applications that revolutionise social and economic processes:

Logistics & aid: searching for missing persons, rapid damage assessment, transporting urgently needed items (e.g. medicines) to hard-to-reach places.
Environment & Inspection: Effective and environmentally friendly agriculture (data collection of farmland), precise environmental protection (recording of stocks) and quick access to hard-to-reach places on buildings.
Infrastructure: Temporary infrastructure services such as flying radio relays to increase range or traffic optimisation through accurate real-time data.

AI as a key technology in shared airspace

AI algorithms play a key role in the safe operation of unmanned aerial systems, the coordination of swarms and interaction with humans, particularly when it comes to integration into the airspace shared with manned aircraft.

They are used for sensor signal processing for the perception of airspace and obstacles, but also for the autonomous planning of trajectories and decision-making for safe and efficient flight guidance.

Thanks to the increased computing power, these AI algorithms can be executed directly on board the flight systems in order to react to data during the flight. In addition, AI algorithms enable faster and more robust development of increasingly complex flight systems. The focus here is on the reduction of design iterations through "generative designs" and the important verification of the performance of AI algorithms, which is essential in Aeronautical Engineering.