Athena Technologies was a developer and manufacturer of control and

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

solutions for

unmanned aerial vehicles An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controlle ...

(UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). In April 2008, Athena was purchased by

Rockwell Collins, Inc. Rockwell Collins was a multinational corporation headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, providing avionics and information technology systems and services to government agencies and aircraft manufacturers. It was formed when the Collins Radio ...

for US$107 million. Athena Technologies was founded in 1998. It was headquartered in

Warrenton, Virginia Warrenton is a town in Fauquier County, Virginia, of which it is the seat of government. The population was 9,611 at the 2010 census, up from 6,670 at the 2000 census. The estimated population in 2019 was 10,027. It is at the junction of U.S. R ...

. The company was created to develop and commercialize flight control technologies. Athena founder Dr. David Vos studied control theory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he proved the control technology by developing the first autonomous unicycle. In August 2014, Dr. Vos became the head of Google's

Project Wing Wing is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. that develops a drone delivery system and UTM systems. The company completed their first deliveries in 2014. The company has operations in Australia, the United States, and Finland. In July 2018, Project Wi ...

. Athena's GuideStar product line provides

INS INS or Ins or ''variant'', may refer to: Places * Ins, Switzerland, a municipality * Creech Air Force Base (IATA airport code INS) * Indonesia, ITF and UNDP code INS Biology *''Ins'', a New World genus of bee flies * INS, the gene for the insulin ...

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

solutions that integrate

IMU IMU may refer to: Science and technology * Inertial measurement unit, a device that measures acceleration and rotation, used for example to maneuver modern vehicles including motorcycles, missiles, air- and spacecraft Businesses and organizations ...

, GPS,

magnetometer A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, o ...

and air data signals for dynamic maneuvering. Athena's products have been deployed on a variety of unmanned systems.

References

External links

Archive of the official website

Athena Technologies Selected to Provide Guidance and Navigation to EMT’S LUNA Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
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Business Wire Business Wire is an American company that disseminates full-text press releases from thousands of companies and organizations worldwide to news media, financial markets, disclosure systems, investors, information web sites, databases, bloggers ...

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EMT selects Athena's GuideStar for Luna UAV conducting surveillance in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Pakistan

NPR story: Technology for Unmanned Planes Shown in Paris

Manned/Unmanned communities edge closer

SEC filing
Manufacturing companies based in Virginia Navigation system companies Companies based in Virginia Fauquier County, Virginia Science and technology in Virginia {{US-manufacturing-company-stub