Avidyne’s President and CEO Dan Schwinn Gives A Techno Preview of An Air Mobility Avionics Future

By Anthony J Liberatore

At the EAA Press Headquarters Avidyne President and CEO Dan Schwinn discussed a host of subjects such as the effects of supply chain issues on their business, Avidyne’s Vantage, and Avidyne’s advanced development efforts in Air Mobility Arena.

In regard to supply chain issues Dan discussed the immediate impact on Avidyne as avionics manufacture and how even their competitors were affected, and he said; “In the grand scheme of electronics, manufacturing, even the biggest Avionics manufacturers are small consumers.”

What happened in the avionics arena was not that dissimilar to what happened to a wide spectrum of manufacturers as consumer goods such as cell phones and computers took the lions share of the integrated circuits during the Covid/lockdown timeframe. With the lack of supply, Dan noted his team utilized and integrated hardware that was available which required code rewrites, which kept them moving forward. Dan elaborated on additional challenges facing not only Avidyne, but the entire avionics industry and he said; “I would say one of the most important things to know about what's going on right now is that the avionics dealer base is under quite a bit of stress. There's a lack of ability and lack of availability of some of the parts but even a bigger issue is a lot of these companies are having their avionics experts hired away by airlines and other operators.

On the Product development side Dan discussed a host of projects including their Vantage twelve-inch PFDs for General Aviation. Initially geared towards Cirrus Retrofits these twelve inch High Resolution Displays with greater functionality will be available with a new instrument panel, and wiring harnesses. This unique approach offers the customer an integrated upgrade kit which allows for comprehensive and uniform installation amongst all the Cirrus’s converted by Avidyne dealers.

Dan was asked about the Air Mobility arena and Avidyne’s participation therein and he said; “So, the answer is, yes, we do have partnerships with several companies, none of which have been announced. But I want to make a few general comments, which is that advanced mobility is used to describe this realm of things that are going on, and it covers a lot of ground. It covers everything from simplified Vehicle Operations to autonomous operations of the current certified aircraft, to a whole lot of different electric aircraft configurations, and takeoff and landing configurations. Then you get into more interesting things, one company we are working with, is doing a ground effects machine, we have another one that is lighter than air. We have several hybrids like Prius’ in the air, so there's a lot of stuff going on there. What we found is these companies are pushing the envelope. So actually, they typically come to us and ask that you put it (their requirements) in a box and make it okay, because we got all these other problems to solve. Which is great, except it's a ton of work because we have to understand their system and to be able to design the kind of architecture is needed to fulfill their needs. That's been something where it's really caused us to be growing our engineering system integration capability. But I also have started to think about it from the perspective of how many hard problems are they trying to solve. Because obviously, solving, five hard problems at once might turn out to take longer. I actually think what you're going to see over the next two years is some of the various kinds of advanced mobility aircraft that are not as ambitious, I think are going to get across the finish line and start doing some really important and interesting things. We're very excited to be working with all these guys.”

Avidyne has partnered with Switzerland based Daedalean AG in the arena of applying AI for greater safety and awareness. Dan talked about AI from an engineering standpoint of what might be needed in an AI system. It was a fascinating look from an engineer’s perspective of what might be involved in terms of systems, and he noted; “The first thing I would say is around sensors. That's definitely applications. But if you were helicopter manufacturer, and you want to figure out a way to help people get in and out of tight spots, you might say, on LIDAR on several light hours. And I want some kind of radar altimetry kind of systems and so forth, I want to integrate it all together into some kind of a hazard awareness system. So, we have people trying to do that. Another application is, in the case of autonomous operations in the airspace, we have to be able to maintain visual separation, so that traffic can be able to fly around, get clearances, etc. So autonomous machines have to be able to do that. So, I think you're going to see applications on the autonomous side, where it's being used to allow participation in the airspace.”

FMI: The Avidyne booth is located in Exhibitor booth 3130A, Exhibit Hanger C at AirVenture. www.avidyne.com