Joby Aviation Acquires Xwing’s Autonomy Division, Advancing Electric Air Taxi Capabilities
Joby Aviation, Inc., a company developing electric air taxis for commercial passenger service, has announced 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.
‘The aircraft we are certifying will have a fully-qualified pilot on board, but we recognize that a future generation of autonomous aircraft will play an important part in unlocking our vision of making clean and affordable aerial mobility as accessible as possible,’ said JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO of Joby Aviation.
‘The exceptionally talented Xwing team has not only made unparalleled progress on the development and certification of vision systems, sensor fusion, and decision-making autonomous technologies, but they’ve also successfully demonstrated the real-life application of their technology, flying hundreds of fully autonomous flights in the national airspace. We’re honored to bring them onboard at Joby as we continue on our mission of building a next-generation aviation company.’
A diverse team of engineers, researchers, and technologists from Xwing will now join Joby, where they will focus on advancing the automation and autonomy roadmap for Joby’s aircraft. Additionally, they will work on expanding opportunities to collaborate with the Department of Defense on technology development.
‘Xwing’s goal of connecting communities with clean and affordable autonomous flight aligns closely with Joby’s long-term vision,’ said Maxime Gariel, co-founder, President, and Chief Technical Officer of Xwing.
‘I am incredibly proud of each member of the Xwing team and everything this talented group has achieved to date. For the past 7 years, our team has broken barriers to advance aviation autonomy. Now, as we join forces with the leading electric air-taxi developer, I can’t imagine a better home for the Xwing team to realize our shared vision.’
Xwing’s autonomous flights utilized a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan aircraft, enabling the team to concentrate on vision system processing, detect-and-avoid algorithms, mission management (including trajectory planning and real-time updates), decision-making, ground control stations, remote operations, and the integration of AI and machine learning algorithms.
In early 2024, the aircraft took part in the Air Force’s Agile Flag 24-1 Joint Force exercise. During this event, it completed daily flights, covering approximately 2,800 miles and landing at eight public and military airports, showcasing its ability to integrate autonomous aircraft into the national airspace system.
‘Autonomous systems are increasingly prolific in the private sector, and bring potentially game-changing advantages to the Air Force as well,’ said Col. Elliott Leigh, AFWERX director and chief commercialization officer for the Department of the Air Force.
‘We created Autonomy Prime to keep up with this shift, and to stay engaged as a partner while this technology evolves, so that we can adapt and evolve along with the private sector, maintaining our competitive advantage.’
The acquisition encompasses all of Xwing’s existing automation and autonomy technology activities and was paid for with Joby shares. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
