Emerging areas

Our second cohort of Programme Directors has joined ARIA with initial ideas to explore. They'll now embark on a collaborative and intensive discovery process to define our next set of opportunity spaces.

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Perpetual Flight

Programme Director: Rico Chandra

Range is a primary constraint on intra-atmospheric flight today. Birds, however, have shown the ability to stay aloft for months by harnessing atmospheric energy sources. There is no fundamental reason why machines shouldn’t outperform birds in long endurance flight. 

  • How can we design aircraft that can reliably find thermals and wind shear, harvest energy from them, and interlace these into long unpowered flight paths?

  • Could perpetual endurance aviation unlock benefits in sensing and communications far beyond what satellite technology has delivered?

  • How can cutting edge modelling, sensors, and robotics enable machines to prospect for and exploit environmental sources of energy in new ways?

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Live opportunity spaces

From thermodynamic computing to programmable plants, our PDs are shaping opportunities at the edge of the possible.

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Programme Directors

Our Programme Directors are exceptional scientists and engineers with the curiosity to explore uncharted territory.

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