Windhover Labs

Mission Low-cost, safe, high-performance drone software that is easy to implement, test, deploy, and operate Windhover supported avionics platforms are capable of safe, reliable, autonomous operation Windhover tools allow developers to quickly and safely integrate their ideas onto flying platforms Windhover operations solutions facilitate safe flight and easy access to remote vehicle information Team Mathew Benson - Chief Engineer Mathew Benson has 13 years of experience leading the development and testing of safety critical flight software for the International Space Station, Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, and numerous Core Flight Software projects for NASA and industry. Technical lead for Core Flight Software (CFS) ARINC 653 port and human rating certification. Ported CFS to Greenhills DO178b ARINC 653 operating system running on a Honeywell/Boeing 787 Flight Control Module. Updated Core Flight Software framework for compliance with human rated software standards. Completed NASA Class A flight software human rated certification testing. Developed an encrypted Iridium satellite communication system for both the flight software as well as the ground segment using Short Burst Data (SBD) transceivers with low gain omni directional antennas so they were small enough to fit on a drone. This was for the NASA EVA Scout drone project. The project created a flight vehicle that could autonomously identify a landing sight and land safely. The vehicle was demonstrated to land safely in a rock yard for NASA and DoD stakeholders. Created the Sage Ground Control System was specifically designed to use industry standard Information Technology (IT) technologies rather than expensive, proprietary aerospace technologies to initially support a NASA educational outreach project. Sage has been transformed into Windhovers Commander operations console. Created a Xenomai Linux Operating System Abstraction Layer for NASA Core Flight Software to support NASA efforts for expanding the use of CFS. Lead the development of a sophisticated file system for used for human space flight on Orion Exploration Flight Test 1. The flash file system was one fault tolerant and provided recording for both Operational Flight Instrumentation as well as video streams. Not a single bit of data was lost from the EFT-1 flight despite several single event upsets. Led project to launch and use two iPhones on the International Space Station (SpaceLab for iOS). Experiments were completed by astronauts to determine the iPhone’s capability to perform inertial navigation and optical navigation in space. Test Director for International Space Station (ISS) Preflight Software Load Initialization Test, performing final powered checkout on 6 flight modules including 2 Node modules and 4 truss modules. Test Director for numerous one of a kind tests for ISS, including high profile on-orbit anomaly resolutions. Test Conductor for testing of the ISS Columbus Orbital Facility. Founded Windhover Labs as a tech startup to develop UAS flight software and won a NASA SBIR phase I contract. Developed flight software, ground systems, and test utilities for UAS platforms positioning Windhover Labs to be a major player in the UAS software market. Awards Received the highest civilian space award, a Silver Snoopy, which is given to less than 2% aerospace community. Presented by astronaut Michael L. Gernhardt for radio communication testing done in support of an upgrade to the International Space Station. 2014 Outstanding Recent Alumni from the University of Wisconsin Whitewater - one awarded per year. 2014 JSC Software of the Year for Partition Level Application Test for Orion (PLATO). 2008 Honeywell Outstanding Engineer awarded to the top 5% of engineers nationwide Served 5 years in the US Navy prior to attending college - awarded the Navy Achievement Medal. Nate Uitenbroek - Program Manager / CEO Nate Uitenbroek has almost 20 years of experience in delivering safety critical software for embedded avionics platforms to improve vehicle design, operation and safety. This includes software for Boeing 767, the International Space Station, the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle in addition to several Core Flight Software projects for NASA. As the Orion Flight Software Architect, lead the Software Avionics and Ground Experts (SAGE) working group in evaluating software and operational concepts required to evolve the Orion Exploration Flight Test One (EFT-1) flight software to support the Exploration Mission flight objectives. Coordinate the NASA architecture team activities to support timely resolution of topics for the Exploration Mission flight software detailed design review. Topics include processor utilization, safe mode, backup flight computer fail down and recovery, vehicle automation vs. operator interaction balance, approach to flight software verification, and the certification of tools supporting data validation. Contributed to the EFT-1 Flight Test Re