NASA is a key partner in the development and maturation of NextGen technologies. Specifically, the Integrated Systems Research Program (ISRP) matures and integrates NextGen technologies into major vehicle/operational systems (http://www.aeronautics.nasa.gov/programs_isrp.htm), and the UAS Integration in the NAS Project (http://www.aeronautics.nasa.gov/isrp/uas/index.htm) within ISRP is focusing on demonstrating effective UAS operations in relevant test environments. In Phase I, we were introduced to this NASA program, specifically with relation to the integration of environmental data into air traffic control; in Phase II we will continue to pursue that avenue of potential Phase II-X partnerships to help develop UAS and Command and Control (C2) performance standards regarding environmental conditions and to integrate WARP (upon successful prototype development in Phase II) into a realistic test environment, such as the live virtual constructive (LVC) distributed environment (DE). Our commercialization strategy for potential transition outside of NASA programs is focused on customers that are likely to provide transition funding in the form of Phase II-E partnerships (for NASA matching funds) and independent Phase III contracts. These customers include government agencies (e.g., FAA, DHS, DoD, DoT, etc.) and prime contractors working on UAS and their associated C2 systems, both within the NAS and operating anywhere in the world. Specifically, we are very familiar with Northrop Grumman, Boeing/Insitu, and Textron/AAI, since we are working with them on DARPA and Navy projects for distributed data fusion among unmanned systems.
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