Merlin Labs
Merlin Labs, a Boston company listed on Nasdaq since March 2026, builds Merlin Pilot, autonomy that can fly an aircraft from take-off to touchdown on several aircraft types. Its main customers are US military.
Founded in 2018 with 51 to 200 staff, it listed through a SPAC merger that raised more than 200 million US dollars. It is working with the FAA and New Zealand's regulator on certification, and unveiled Condor, a commercial cargo autonomy programme, in May 2026.
It is sole prime on a 105 million US dollar US Special Operations Command contract for reduced-crew C-130J flying, which passed preliminary design review in March 2026, and has a research agreement on the KC-135 with the US Air Force. Dynamic Aviation's King Airs are used for testing. Its 100 million dollar contract figure is ceiling value, not booked revenue.
No verified deployments yet
Merlin Labs is profiled in the companies register, but no deployment has been verified against published evidence. Records are added as evidence is reviewed and graded.
Products & Solutions
1 productMerlin Pilot
An AI-powered, aircraft-agnostic autonomous flight system that enables aircraft to fly from takeoff to touchdown autonomously, with or without human crew on board. Built on a first-principles approach, the software adapts to any fixed-wing aircraft platform.
Reduces required crew size for high-risk or extended-duration military flight missions, extends aircraft operational range, and enables reduced-crew or crewless operation to improve mission flexibility and force survivability for Special Operations and Air Mobility Command.
- Aircraft-agnostic architecture: adapts to any aircraft type
- Full-envelope autonomy from takeoff to touchdown
- AI-powered with continuous learning from operational data
- Supports reduced aircrew and crewless operation modes
4 more features
- Human-machine teaming capability
- Autonomous fault detection, recovery, and mission adaptation
- Modular open architecture compatible with GE Flight Management System
- Proven through hundreds of autonomous flight hours
Technical specifications (3)
- Platforms demonstrated: C-130J Super Hercules, KC-135 Stratotanker
- Operational mode: autonomous takeoff to touchdown
- Architecture: open, government reference architecture compatible (A-GRA)
- Airworthiness authorization received for KC-135 autonomy (2023)
- C-130J Preliminary Design Review (PDR) completed and approved March 5, 2026, integration design and airworthiness approach approved
- C-130J Critical Design Review (CDR) expected within months of March 2026
Condor
Register notes
Notes held in the Aerostack register. Aerostack has not independently verified them.
Merlin is building an autonomous flight system that installs on existing aircraft rather than requiring new airframes, targeting both commercial aviation (pilot shortage, cargo efficiency) and defence (reduced-crew military aircraft).
Read the rest
The US Air Force C-130J programme is the most commercially significant validation; achieving Stage of Involvement 2 milestone with New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority (October 2025) demonstrates international regulatory progress.
Key competitors are Reliable Robotics (similar commercial retrofit approach) and Shield AI (defence autonomy).
Merlin's path to the public markets via SPAC in 2025/26 is ahead of most autonomous aviation peers.
Profile data from the Aerostack companies register; deployment records from the verified register. Evidence grades: T1 first-party confirmation, T2 credible reporting. See Our approach for how records are graded.