Pierce Aerospace and the University of Notre Dame Awarded US Air Force Agility Prime Contract for Remote ID for Air Vehicles

December 23, 2020

December 23, 2020, Indianapolis, IN — Pierce Aerospace and the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Research Computing announced that the US Air Force awarded them an Agility Prime contract for “Decentralized Remote ID for Air Vehicles: Optimization of Low Latency, Scalable Data Networks Via Emulation, Modeling, and Simulation.” This award comes on the heels of Pierce Aerospace’s recent advances with Flight Portal ID, a Remote ID and Combat ID technology suite, including a recent integration with US Army Command and Control systemsin downtown New Orleans airspace.

“We applaud the AFWERX and Air Force Research Laboratory teams’ speed in moving quickly, at the speed of startups, to deliver innovation across the US Government,” said Aaron Pierce, CEO Pierce Aerospace. “We are excited to continue our development of Remote ID technologies for air vehicles in the Agility Prime program. Remote ID is a critical airspace technology that plays a significant role in low-level airspace. We intend to work with the University of Notre Dame to build tools for effectively measuring and planning how to scale Remote ID well beyond early technology demonstrations. Our “Fighting Irish” colleagues at Notre Dame have proven track records, and we couldn’t be more pleased to work with them in this endeavor. Go Irish!” – Aaron Pierce, CEO Pierce Aerospace.

“The Air Force recently launched Agility Prime, a non-traditional program seeking to accelerate the commercial market for advanced air mobility vehicles (i.e., “flying cars”). Leveraging unique testing resources and revenue generating government use cases for distributed logistics and disaster response, the government plans to mitigate current commercial market and regulatory risks. Agility Prime also aims to bring together industry, investor, and government communities to establish safety and security standards while accelerating commercialization of this revolutionary technology.” – USAF Agility Prime.

In addition to the US Air Force award, Pierce Aerospace was awarded a matching grant through Indiana’s Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) program. Administered by Elevate Ventures, the SBIR/STTR program helps accelerate R&D and technology development and commercialization among Indiana small businesses.

“Since 2014, Indiana’s SBIR/STTR matching grant program has provided $8.26M to 115 companies,” said Ting Gootee, chief investment officer at Elevate Ventures. “Providing matching funds to companies like Pierce Aerospace accelerates technology development and startup building activities strategic to our state.”

“Across the state, companies like Pierce Aerospace are working together with Indiana’s world-class research institutions to innovate and develop products that support our nation’s military,” said retired Major General Omer C. (Clif) Tooley Jr., Indiana Economic Development Corporation president of defense development. “We’re excited to see Pierce Aerospace leverage the state’s SBIR/STIR program to fuel defense innovation and look forward to supporting the company’s efforts to scale its Remote ID technology and position their business, and Indiana’s defense industry, for long-term growth.”

“Indiana continues to support first-tier innovation in both defense and commercial developments,” said Pierce. “The additional grant to pair with our USAF award is a shining example of Indiana leadership and initiative in supporting technology development.”

Pierce Aerospace has engagements across the DOD and has successfully demonstrated early iterations of Flight Portal ID in military relevant, urban, and rural environments. Pierce Aerospace continues to develop and mature Flight Portal ID for both commercial and defense use cases. The company plans to use the emulation and simulation tools developed through the USAF Agility Prime contract to aid in developing Remote ID and air data networks to support the DOD and the growing air mobility and UAS industries.

The Center for Research Computing (CRC) at the University of Notre Dame is an innovative and multidisciplinary research environment that supports collaboration to facilitate discoveries through advanced computation, software engineering, data analysis, and other digital research tools. The Center enhances the University’s innovative applications of cyberinfrastructure, provides support for interdisciplinary research and education, and conducts computational research. The CRC’s Embedded Systems Lab has extensive experience in data management, IoT networks, edge and fog computing, and unmanned aircraft systems.

“CRC is very enthused about working with Pierce Aerospace on this award,” said Jaroslaw Nabrzyski, Director, Center for Research Computing. “We believe that we can prove that Pierce Aerospace’s Remote ID technology scales to manage significant numbers of UASs in a congested network. Our engineers and scientists are working very closely together with Pierce Aerospace to test this technology under unprecedented but realistic conditions.”

“With multiple SBIR/STTR contract vehicles for Remote ID / Combat ID, Pierce Aerospace can move quickly with US Government stakeholders to advance Remote ID technology,” said Pierce. “Our ability to move fast with the government ultimately aids our UTM, C-UAS, and OEM industry partners in fulfilling their missions while accelerating the commercialization potential for both the air mobility and UAS industries. We’re here to serve others and look forward to doing so in 2021 and beyond.”

About Pierce Aerospace

Pierce Aerospace is a niche Remote ID service provider focused on practical and robust integration of Remote ID services into the unmanned ecosystem. As an industry leader, Pierce Aerospace serves on the Unmanned Aircraft Safety Team, ASTM F38 UAS Remote ID Committee, and the FAA’s Remote ID Cohort. Funds from the US Air Force and the State of Indiana have supported Pierce Aerospace’s Remote ID technology development. Flight Portal ID was nominated as Indiana’s Innovation of the Year by TechPoint and was awarded first place in Remote ID technology by AUVSI’s Xcellence’s Awards. Pierce Aerospace is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, The Racing Capital of the World. www.pierceaerospace.net

About University of Notre Dame CRC

The Notre Dame CRC is an interdisciplinary and applied STEM-focused R&D centre creating new ITC approaches to problems in science and society. The centre includes computational, data, and cybersecurity scientists, advanced computing engineers, research programmers – a total of 60+ staff and faculty, 30 with advanced degrees. The CRC serves as a technology and talent incubator with commercialization successes like SIMBA Chain in the CRC pedigree.

About Elevate Ventures

Elevate Ventures is a private venture development organization that nurtures and develops emerging and existing high-growth businesses into high-performing, Indiana-based companies. Elevate Ventures accomplishes this by providing access to capital, rigorous business analysis and robust advisory services that connect companies with the right mix of resources businesses need to succeed long term.

To learn more about Elevate Ventures, visit elevateventures.com.