ASTRAEA  (for Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation & Assessment) is a UK industry-lead consortium focusing on the technologies, systems, facilities and procedures that will allow autonomous vehicles to operate safely and routinely in civil airspace over the United Kingdom.

The AOS partnership role is a consequence of its expertise in the core technology of autonomy and decision-making. AOS's JACK™ software provides UAVs with the   autonomous, decision-making power they must have to operate safely and routinely in commercial airspace.

Over the next five years, ASTRAEA will cover three main themes: technology development and maturation; regulatory process development; and systems integration and flight demonstration. These are the key elements in the breakthrough needed to make commercial UAV operations, such as small packet freight, or surveillance, a reality.

"It's only a matter of time and technology before UAVs populate our airspace safely and efficiently," said AOS Founder and Managing Director Andrew Lucas, "and ASTRAEA is blazing the developmental trail. Our combined efforts over the next five years will set operational standards for the rest of the world to follow."  

It was the usual cast of characters at the Farnborough Air Show this July: Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, BAE Systems, Airbus, EADS, Thales, Finmeccanica and many, many others -- including AOS in two locations.

For those unfamiliar with Farnborough, it's one of the major aviation and allied industries shows in the world. Held every two years (alternating with the Paris Air Show), the Farnborough show never fails to impress with a vast array of static displays, awesome flying demonstrations each afternoon for a week, and daily aviation industry announcements and press conferences where the major players vie for the largest news headlines.

AOS has manned a stand there since 2002 and this year was no exception. In fact, AOS had a dual presence at both the East of England International pavilion and at the Maryland stand in the US pavilion.

Among the memorable highlights of this year's show was the heat -- around 90^oF each day with Wednesday, July 19 setting a new record for July at 97^o. Of course the flying displays are always spectacular and this year featured the double-decker Airbus 380 and Bell's V-22 Osprey, a tilt-rotor craft designed for the US Marine Corps. And there was a thunderous assortment of fighter planes including a Mig-29, Panavia Tornado, Eurofighter Typhoon, SAAB Grippen, F-16 and F-18, plus a Spitfire Mark XIX and a Lancaster bomber, both exquisitely restored.

Andrew Lucas and Andy Park, representing AOS, spent the week shaking hands, chatting about JACK and autonomous decision support for UAVs, going to meetings, attending functions and trying to beat the heat. But the new contacts they made and previous contacts renewed and revitalized made their efforts worthwhile.

AOS would like to thank East of England International and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development for their support at Farnborough 2006.

With its new design tracing tool and enhanced features, JACK™ Intelligent Agents (JACK) v5.0 provides improved intelligent agent programming capabilities:

• Design Tracing Tool — that allows the user to view the internal details of an executing JACK application. The tool can trace a combination of all executing agents, agent types and/or individual agents by highlighting links between elements in design diagrams when transitions between corresponding JACK elements occur. The design tracing tool also allows the user to control the execution of a traced JACK application. Traced applications can be displayed in descriptive mode, and the relevant agents and tasks of design diagrams may also be viewed.
  
• Generate Project Report — allows the user to save all or parts of a JDE project to a file in either simple text or XML format. This enables the data in a JDE project to be manipulated with custom tools and allows a synopsis to be generated in a simple way. The report can also be printed directly from the JDE.
  
• Platform Enhanced Font Support — the JDE now has more control over fonts. The user can choose to set fonts for designs and graphical plans, along with fonts used in JDE browser windows. A powerful font chooser is provided for selecting and setting these fonts.

Click here to learn more and download an evaluation copy today.

It was estimated that in excess of 500,000 people attended the Fair with over 200 attending the AOS stand specifically. Many showed a significant interest in moving forward with AOS from both an end user and business partner perspective, with JACK being ideally suited to providing intelligent agent capabilities for such diverse applications as Intelligent Call Centres, Responsive Marketing, Legacy Integration, Risk Management, as well as Collections and Compliance Monitoring.

Tony Delaney (Manager Enterprise Applications for AOS) who managed the stand commented: “This has been an excellent event to help AOS establish a foothold in the European enterprise marketplace, and has resulted in some very interesting opportunities to move forward with. It has certainly been worth all of the time and effort in preparing for and attending the event.”

Agent Oriented Software displayed its JAE-Box (intelligent autonomous controller) at the Avalon Airshow 2005, attracting the attention of The Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, the Hon Ian Macfarlane, MP. While visiting the Unmanned Technologies Australia stand, the Minister showed great interest in AOS's intelligent autonomous controller, and spoke at length about its capabilities and international customer base with Dr Andrew Lucas, AOS's Managing Director, who commented “I am enthused by the strong support we have received from the Minister and his Department, and I look forward to the JAE-Box being adopted in UAV
programs around the world as the next generation of intelligent team-based controllers.”

The Hon Warren Entsch MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for ITR, also visited the stand and expressed great enthusiasm for the capabilities of AOS, and the Australian UAV industry in general. AOS's JAE-Box attracted attention from a number of international UAV firms, including General Atomics and American Aircraft Industries (AAI), both of whom were keenly interested.

Unmanned Technologies Australia (UTA) has been created by industry in response to the recommendations of the Australian Government's Aerospace Industry Action Agenda. UTA aims to represent and demonstrate the capabilities of Australian companies working in the area of unmanned vehicles. UTA and the Avalon Airshow stand was set up with the tireless assistance of David Mitchell and the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources.