SBIR-STTR Award

The Department of Defense is seeking the next generation of personnel transportations systems to maintain the cutting edge on the battlefield. An innovative personal air mobility system could fulfill a variety of military missions, including responsive movement of personnel, urban augmented combat, CSAR, spotting for fire support, maritime interdiction and rapid infiltration and exfiltration. However, most modern personal air mobility systems are not suited for these defense missions. Today’s jetpacks have several problems: they are too loud, too slow, easily detected by IR, require use of both hands, require extensive training, and/or are foreign based and foreign owned companies. All these factors pose risk to the operator and limit the scalability of DoD use cases. Skypad’s Portable (Optionally Manned) Personal Air Mobility System (Jetpack) is the only U.S. owned and U.S. based company capable of addressing the DoD’s need for cost effective, agile systems that are designed for defense utility. Our jetpack is a system of systems designed and integrated by the world’s foremost experts in personal air mobility. The system is not only capable of transporting a soldier from point A to point B quickly (reaching speeds of 45mph and 30mins of flight time), but also doing it autonomously (requiring little or no pilot training), enabling hands free AR targeting capabilities, use of soldier’s weapons, and operating quietly without IR signature. The system may be deployed (autonomously) to a soldier’s position to allow for exfiltration from hostile territory, or easily transported and ground deployed to allow for greater off-road mobility without the use of existing Vertical Takeoff & Landing. The system is modular and quickly setup with minimal tooling and has cargo capacity up to 200 lbs of equipment or supplies. The electric turbofans allow for a much quieter system than gas powered alternatives. Additionally, the system is ruggedized with multiple safety systems, and a much lower maintenance overhead than helicopter or other VTOL systems.

The Department of Defense is seeking the next generation of personnel transportation systems to maintain the cutting edge on the battlefield. An innovative personal air mobility system could fulfill a variety of military missions, including responsive movement of personnel, urban augmented combat, CSAR, spotting for fire support, maritime interdiction and rapid infiltration and exfiltration. However, most modern personal air mobility systems are not suited for these defense missions. Today’s personal air mobility systems have several problems: they are too loud, too slow, easily detected by IR, require use of both hands, require extensive training, and/or are foreign based and foreign owned companies. All these factors pose risk to the operator and limit the scalability of DoD use cases.