Tuesday, June 4, 2024 Joby Aviation , Inc, a company developing electric air taxis for commercial passenger service, announced today its acquisition of Xwing Inc.’s autonomy division, a leader in autonomous aviation technology. Founded in 2016, Xwing has been pioneering autonomous flight since 2020 with its in-house Superpilot software.
Superpilot, the world’s first fully autonomous gate-to-gate flight technology, enables safe, uncrewed operations supervised from the ground. Xwing has completed 250 fully autonomous flights and over 500 auto-landings. In April 2023, it became the first company to receive an official project designation for certifying a large unmanned aerial system (UAS) from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and received an Air Force Military Flight Release in 2024.
This acquisition positions Joby at the forefront of aviation autonomy, enhancing its portfolio with the expertise and technology developed by Xwing. It builds on Joby’s 2021 acquisition of Inras GmbH, a developer of lightweight, high-performance radar sensor technology. Xwing’s comprehensive approach to perception technology, system integration, and certification is expected to benefit Joby’s near-term piloted operations and future fully autonomous operations.
Additionally, the technology is anticipated to accelerate the execution of existing contract deliverables with the U.S. Department of Defense and expand opportunities for future contracts.
JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO, sai.
