In late 2019, Hector (Haofeng) Xu, whilst pursuing his PhD in MIT’s aeronautics and astronautics department, took to learning to fly helicopters. After some near misses, he was inspired to make helicopter flight safer. This would be the foundation for his autonomous helicopter company, Rotor Technologies, Inc., established in 2021. The aim was to mitigate risks associated with flying small, private aircraft which claims several lives every year due to a variety of causes including inclement weather and loss of control. The company began by retrofitting existing helicopters with sensors and software to execute the most dangerous flights autonomously, thereby expanding the use-cases for aviation.
By using established helicopter models and retrofitting them with autonomous technology, Rotor was able to commercialize quickly. The company is now conducting demo flights around its headquarters in Nashua, New Hampshire, and will make its aircraft commercially available later this year. The core of Rotor’s solution is a “fly by wire” system with advanced communication tools and sensors, often borrowed from the autonomous vehicle industry.
The team at Rotor, mainly comprised of MIT graduates, benefited from affiliations at the institute in areas such as mentorship and innovation initiatives. An important decision the company made was to work with aircrafts from Robinson Helicopter Company as opposed to starting from scratch. This gives Rotor access to Robinson’s existing supply chain and also makes the product more familiar to potential customers. The converted helicopters (R550X) can carry up to 1,212 pounds, travel over 120 miles per hour, and—with auxiliary fuel tanks—stay in the air for several hours. Rotor also monitors flights 24/7 with a cloud-based human supervision system it calls Cloudpilot.
Rotor’s long-term vision is to go entirely autonomous, eliminating pilots from the cockpit. Commencing with flights in remote areas to minimize risk of human injury, the company plans to debut with a few aircraft sold in its first year before ramping up production to between 50 and 100 per year. Looking ahead, Xu is hopeful about Rotor changing our daily lives with safer, more affordable vertical take-off and-landing aircraft.
