Merlin, Inc. (Merlin), an aerospace and defense technology company building the operating system of record for autonomous flight, today announced it has successfully achieved the Stage of Involvement 3 (SOI 3) milestone with the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand (CAANZ) for two critical components of the Merlin Pilot autonomy platform: the Flight Control Computer (FCC) and the Automated Communication System (ACS). The work has been conducted with CAANZ in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) under a Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement.

Achieving SOI 3 marks a major certification milestone to confirm that Merlin’s software has been tested and verified against its requirements. The milestone builds on prior Stage of Involvement achievements, including SOI 1 and SOI 2, and shows Merlin is progressing through the rigorous certification process put in place by regulators. Merlin has also successfully concluded an important issue paper addressing the use of AI/ML-based natural language processing within the certification program, signifying that Merlin and CAANZ have agreed on the certification approach and the evidence required to demonstrate that the Merlin Pilot's AI/ML-based capabilities are safe and perform as intended.