Akrobotix Wins Large Grant through SBIR for Unmanned Systems Operations

Akrobotix (GENIUS NY ’17) was recently awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant to enable safe and reliable autonomous unmanned flight operations for drones. NSF supports research and development of deep technologies - those that are based on discoveries in fundamental science and engineering.

"This NSF SBIR grant will enable Akrobotix to develop and commercialize its unique, core technology: a universal, platform-independent autopilot for autonomous vehicles,” said Amit Sanyal, co-founder of Akrobotix. “It is a dream come true for its founders, as the NSF SBIR grant is a very prestigious award made through a very selective and rigorous peer-review process of proposals submitted nationwide. Add to that the fact that it funds the development of Akrobotix's core technology, and that makes it even more special!" 

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are used in a growing number of applications requiring increased vehicle autonomy, such as indoor operations, civilian infrastructure inspection, precision agriculture and aquaculture, remote sensing, wildlife tracking and conservation, and package/medicine delivery. As the diversity and number of applications of autonomous UAS keep growing, platform-independent solutions to onboard autonomy become increasingly important. Akrobotix plans to advance in platform-independent onboard autonomy, particularly for small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS), to enable safety and reliability of UAS.

Akrobotix won $250,000 in 2017 in the GENIUS NY accelerator at The Tech Garden. GENIUS NY is the world’s largest business accelerator competition for unmanned systems and since 2017 has invested $9M in 17 startups. The accelerator is based in Syracuse, NY and is a short drive to the New York UAS Test Site run by NUAIR, one of only seven in the nation.

Recent news from the test site includes a plan to add an indoor drone testing and experimentation center called the “Skydome”. The facility would be a year-round indoor, weather-free venue for experimenting in the small drone industry, including techniques to aid with emergency management services, damage assessment, and search and rescue.