Commercializing Federal R&D: Secrets to Startup Success

Janeya Griffin • NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center

Kraettli L. Epperson • Vigilant Aerospace Systems

Agenda• What is FlightHorizon?

• Vetting federal technologies for commercial potential

• Finding relevant federal innovations

• Validating market potential

• Negotiating a win-win deal

• Building a market-ready product

• Cultivating the market

• Conclusions and lessons learned

• Detect-and-avoid for piloted and autonomous drones

• Unmanned aerial systems (UAS)

• Exclusively licensed (U.S. #9,405,005)

• Fully implemented software with transponder integration

• Tablet- or laptop-based

• Helps meet FAA requirements

• Years of flight testing

• Growing market demand: Industrial flying

What Is FlightHorizon?

Vetting Federal Technologies for Commercial Potential

Why NASA Patents IP• Space program technologies may have other applications

Vetting Federal Technologies

Evaluating Commercial Potential• Market research

• Does the technology meet a market need?

• Prior art search• How does it compare to what exists?

• Level of development• What is required to get this

technology to market?

Vetting Federal Technologies

Market Need

NASA’s Marketing Strategies• Active outreach

• Conferences

• Online postings

• http://technology.nasa.gov

Vetting Federal Technologies

How Vigilant Aerospace Found This Tech• Conferences

• Publications

• Word-of-Mouth (friends at NASA and FLC)

Validating the Market• Initial screening

• Technical feasibility (NDA)

• Market applicability

• Competitiveness

• Disruptiveness

• Problem-Solution statement

Validating the Market

Validating the Market

Average 5.3 incidents per day

0

50

100

150

200

250

INCIDENTS

46%

Problem-Solution Statement• Millions of drones

• No air traffic control

• No detect-and-avoid

• Solution exists and is viable

• IP protection and patent

• Uses existing infrastructure

• Meets likely regulatory hurdles

• First-to-market opportunity

• Go-to-market strategy

Negotiating a Win-Win Deal• NASA wants to help startups license technology

• Flexible and open to all companies

• Options and programs• Startup NASA

• Evaluation license

• Commercial licenses• Standard license with negotiable terms

• Some patents have preset low-cost fees and standard terms for rapid licensing

• Space Act Agreements for access to inventors and facilities

Negotiating a Win-Win Deal• Apply for license

• Full business plan

• Full pro forma

• Forecast balance sheet and profit-and-loss (P&L)

Negotiating a Win-Win Deal• Bidding process

• Critical factors• Familiarity with the market and the technologies

• Vision for the product

• Vision for product-market fit

• Vision for the future

Negotiating a Win-Win Deal• Negotiations

• Licensing fees and percentage rates

• Milestones

• Books and guidelines

• Attorney with experience

Building a Market-Ready Product

Commercialization Process• IP transfer: Collection of patent info,

source code, documentation, notes

• Intake and software development setup: Agile processes

• Extensive software evaluation

Building a Market-Ready Product

Development Process• Interface updates

• Functional changes• Small UAS, slower targets, static

targets

• New hardware integrations• New receivers, transponders

• Review and quality control

• Customer feedback

• Product roadmap and long-range planning

• Testing, testing… and more testing

Building a Market-Ready Product

NASA Flight Testing: 2013Building a Market-Ready Product

sUAS DemonstratorBuilding a Market-Ready Product

NASA Flight Testing: 2016 & 2017• Testing of FlightHorizon at NASA

Armstrong: Variety of aircraft

• ~350 encounters: Two programs

• FAA and FCC observers

• AIAA paper

Building a Market-Ready Product

Ongoing Development & Testing• Ongoing flight tests: 2017, 2018

• New features, filters, algorithms

• Low-cost, highly effective

• Short-range DAA via settings

• New equipment testing and feature validation

• Customer demonstrations

• Customer flights

Building a Market-Ready Product

Cultivating the Market

NASA Outreach Contributions• Success stories

• Awards

Cultivating the Market

Recent Industry PressCultivating the Market

Industry PresentationsCultivating the Market

Industry OutreachCultivating the Market

Scott Simmie: The Digital Circuit

“…In fact, some recent research on this front

has been carried out using DJI products, which

were successfully able to sense-and-avoid each

other in test-scenarios… An autonomous detect-

and-avoid technology has been successfully

tested using DJI Phantom 4 drones in yet

another important step toward a world with integrated airspace…”

Cultivating the Market

Colin Snow: The Drone Analyst

“…There are other solutions for aircraft

identification that don’t involve certificates or a

digitally enabled UTM system. For example,

Vigilant Aerospace completed beyond line-of-

sight flight testing of its new FlightHorizon

collision avoidance system for drones at NASA

Armstrong Flight Research Center in the Mojave Desert without a complex system.”

Cultivating the Market

Summary• NASA is a good source of innovations to be commercialized

• Other government agencies as well

• Access to innovators and facilities can be negotiated

• Collaborative R&D benefits both parties

Lessons Learned• Do your homework

• Find great technologies – online and at conferences

• Research them in-depth – great online resources

• Look for large or rapidly growing markets and well-defined problems

• Hire experienced advisors• Attorneys and consultants

• Be patient• Accessing federal technology takes time

• Remember: You’re standing on the shoulders of giants

• Take advantage of cooperative agreements and opportunities

Janeya Griffin • NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center

Kraettli L. Epperson • Vigilant Aerospace Systems

Commercializing Federal R&D: Secrets to Startup Success