Merlin, a developer of autonomous flight technology for fixed-wing aircraft, today announced it successfully began the flight test campaign of its certification-ready Cessna Caravan aircraft equipped with the Merlin Pilot. This campaign aims to prove the safety case for certified advanced automation for an aircraft platform, which can be extensible across additional aircraft types and classes, including the Merlin Pilot’s integration on the C-130J and the KC-135 in partnership with the United States Air Force.
“Merlin emerged from a broad field of experimental demonstrators, and is now uniquely turning in a ‘final draft’ with the flight test campaign of the industry’s first certification-ready Cessna Caravan. What we’ve installed on this aircraft is not a prototype as this is no longer R&D. This is the actual certification configuration including design data, hundreds of drawings and substantiation reports, custom racks and structures, compliant wiring, and more,” said Matt George, CEO and founder, Merlin. “With this aircraft we are validating takeoff to touchdown advanced automation, which for pilots, represents a system that is truly ‘set it and forget it.’ At the end of the campaign with this certification configuration we will ultimately return this aircraft to service in the Supplemental Type Certificate configuration. This is part of our steady push towards our certification and commercialization goals.”
The aircraft was converted to include a glass cockpit with advanced avionics, new sensors, autopilot, and an automated communication system. Notably, the advanced automation systems feature dual redundancy akin to those found in the Part 25 air transport category aircraft, ensuring enhanced reliability and safety standards. The aircraft initially underwent integration check flights in June 2024, functional check flights, and is now working through open, inner, and closed looping testing flights, which will culminate in Q3 2024 with validation of Merlin’s automatic flight control system, according to the company.
“At Merlin, we take progressive, pragmatic steps as has been evidenced before with our recent approach to our Certification System Bench. The same can be said for this flight test campaign. We stripped everything out of this Cessna Caravan and replaced the instrument panel and legacy systems with state of the art modern avionics, the latest display systems, and custom hardware and software for the Merlin Pilot. This includes an air data computer, inertial navigation system, heading system, radar altimeter, all of which were integrated at an incredibly high level of quality in order to meet certification standards,” said Sherif Ali, Chief Engineer, Merlin. “With these systems onboard, the Merlin Pilot is able to understand where the aircraft is, where it’s going, and more. This information goes into our flight control computers and is processed such that the Merlin Pilot can ultimately fly the aircraft where it needs to go, when it needs to go there.”
For more information
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240905607297/en/Merlin-Begins-Industry-First-Flight-Test-Campaign-of-Certification-Ready-Aircraft
