Rotor Technologies propels advances in autonomous helicopters [Video]

In late 2019, after years of studying aviation and aerospace engineering, Hector (Haofeng) Xu decided to learn to fly helicopters. At the time, he was pursuing his PhD in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, so he was familiar with the risks associated with flying small aircraft. But something about being in the cockpit gave Xu a greater appreciation of those risks. After a couple of nerve-wracking experiences, he was inspired to make helicopter flight safer.

In 2021, he founded the autonomous helicopter company Rotor Technologies, Inc.

It turns out Xu’s near-misses weren’t all that unique. Although large, commercial passenger planes are extremely safe, people die every year in small, private aircraft in the U.S. Many of those fatalities occur during helicopter flights for activities like crop dusting, fighting fires, and medical evacuations.

Rotor is retrofitting existing helicopters with a suite of sensors and software to remove the pilot from some of the most dangerous flights and expand use cases for …