Merlin aims to bring military aircraft-agnostic autonomy core to cargo aircraft

Merlin, an aerospace and defense technology company, announced on Thursday Merlin Pilot for Commercial Cargo, which will introduce its aircraft-agnostic AI-powered autonomy core to commercial aircraft, starting with cargo aircraft. Merlin Pilot is supposed to work alongside pilots to expand crew capabilities and is designed to manage systems, monitor the environment and handle communications. The company states this leaves flight crew free to focus on areas where human judgment matters most. It claims the system has logged hundreds of flights across multiple aircraft platforms and has a strong foundation for certification. "The pilot shortage is structurally impacting operators and comes at a time when the conversion market is at record volume. The window to integrate autonomy, both during the Passenger-to-Freighter (P2F) conversion and in aircraft being currently built, is open, making this a particularly pivotal moment," said Merlin CEO and founder, Matt George. "Condor represents our approach to scaling autonomy across large, multi-crew aircraft, with the Merlin Pilot at its core. It's being built to certify, advancing on real military aircraft with real regulators, and is designed to integrate into the aircraft operators already own. That's what we're building for commercial cargo." RELATED STORIES: Wisk Aero adds second Generation 6 autonomous eVTOL to flight test program Samson Sky gaining runway in foreign countries Robinson Helicopter Company expands into autonomous aircraft sectorMerlin Pilot for Commercial Cargo is part of Condor, Merlin's product family for large, multi-crew aircraft. Condor will apply Merlin Pilot to military transports such as the C-130J, as well as Part 25 aircraft. It is currently being tested under contract with the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) using the C-130J and has completed its Preliminary Design Review (PDR) in March. The company has been collaborating with World Star Aviation and building relationships in the commercial cargo conversion market. It aims to establish a framework for integrating Merlin Pilot into the converted commercial cargo airframes that are actually flown.