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Episode 39 of the “Aerospace Ambition Podcast” featuring Maxime Gariel (Joby Aviation) and Irina Muntean (Technical University of Munich) is out!

Talking Points

• How did Maxime’s role change when Xwing was acquired by Joby?
• Why invest in eVTOLs when helicopters already exist?
• From a technical perspective, could aircraft fly autonomously today, even without full regulatory approval?
• How far along is Joby in developing autonomous capabilities for its aircraft, and what are the biggest technological challenges to achieving full autonomy in urban air mobility?
• How does Joby leverage AI-driven technologies to enhance navigation, obstacle detection, and real-time decision-making in its autonomous systems?

Guest

Maxime is a leader in autonomous flight. He has started his career with internships at NASA, earned a PhD from Georgia Tech, and then did post-doctoral research at MIT, all of which in the field of aviation. After MIT, he worked at Rockwell Collins and later co-founded X-Wing in 2016, where he was president and CTO. X-Wing develops modular autonomy technology, which makes any aircraft capable of flying autonomously. This summer, X-Wing was acquired by Joby Aviation and Maxime now leads their autonomy team.