<http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Luminati-Debuts-Solar-Single-Seater-226027-1.html>
Luminati Debuts Solar Single-Seater
Luminati Aerospace <http://www.luminati.aero/>, a technology company based on
Long Island, New York, brought a new solar-electric-powered single-seat
airplane to Sun 'n Fun this week. CEO Daniel Preston told AVweb the V-Zero
Substrata airplane will fly at the show on Saturday in the Experimental
Showcase. It has a four-hour endurance with the motor running, he said, and a
200-nm range. Preston said he plans to next produce six twin-seat versions of
the airplane, starting later this summer. Four of those will go to research
institutions.
Preston said the company has been working on the airplane for about four
months, and it's derived from a much larger UAV version that he's building for
a client. "It's a wonderful airplane to fly," he said. "The technology has
matured to the point where you can have a viable solar-electric aircraft. It
has pretty respectable performance." The airplane has a top speed of about 70
knots and can fly up to 28,000 feet. "It has a 200-nm range. And you can park
it in the sun, and four hours later it's ready to go again," Preston said.
<http://www.avweb.com/podcast/Podcast-Daniel-Preston-CEO-of-Luminati-Aerospace-226035-1.html>
Podcast: Daniel Preston, CEO of Luminati Aerospace
By Mary Grady
<http://cdn.avweb.com/media/podcast/2016-04-09_DanielPreston-Luminati.mp3>
Daniel Preston and his crew turned up at Sun 'n Fun this week with a pretty
little one-seat airplane, its long wings covered in solar cells. He talks with
AVweb's Mary Grady about the airplane's genesis, its performance and his future
plans for the design.
Model:V0 Substrata
* 1/4-scale research ship for unmanned stratosphere telecom
* Built for Fortune 250 company
* 1 place
* 4-hour endurance
* 32:1 L/D
* 120:1 L/D with solar power direct to motor, not batteries
* 200 NM range
* four-hour recharge time
* 70 knots
* 28,000 ceiling
* In ~four months construction will begin on 6 tandems for research
institutions
<http://www.luminati.aero/>
Luminati Aerospace LLC is an aerospace technology company focusing on research,
development, testing, and manufacturing of next generation solar-electric
unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, at its facility located at the historic
Calverton EPCAL airbase in Riverhead, New York.
Luminati has assembled a "dream team” of engineers and university professors to
work on its initial project. After the initial project is concluded, Luminati
plans to establish itself as a major force in the global aerospace industry,
focusing on cutting-edge, high-technology aerospace manufacturing.
Luminati Aerospace LLC
400 David Court
Calverton, NY 11933
Daniel Preston - CEO/CTO
Daniel Preston founded Atair Aerospace, Inc. in 2001 and served as its Chief
Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer. A professional inventor who
holds more than 120 patents and pending patent applications for a diverse body
of inventions, his work includes extensive developments in guidance and sensing
technologies, materials science, composite fabric technology, and ram-air
inflated wings. These inventions have resulted in contracts with military and
government agencies including the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, NASA, and DARPA,
SOCOM, NSW, NRL, CIA as well as multiple foreign militaries on products ranging
from satellite-guided parachute systems and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to
the highest aperture antennae in the Air Force’s arsenal.
Prior to Atair, he founded Preston Glass Industries in 1989 which specialized
in the development, design and manufacture of high speed automation machinery
for specialty glass products, such as light bulbs, ampoules and cathode ray
tubes. The business evolved from his receiving an accelerated college education
starting at the age of 12, to becoming a qualified master scientific glass
blower, plus subsequent education in plasma physics and mechanical engineering.
His products and enabling technologies appear in an extensive range of
applications from medical treatments to spacecraft.
An experienced parachutist, paraglider and pilot with over 3000 test
jumps/flights, Preston has set several world records in aerodynamics relating
to parafoils. The Smithsonian Institute selected Preston’s composite parafoil
and two wingsuits for display opposite the Wright Brothers’ flyer as part of
the Smithsonian’s National Design Museum exhibition “Extreme Textiles:
Designing for High Performance.” His work remains in the permanent collection
of the Smithsonian and has also appeared in the Metropolitan Museum, Wexner
Center for the Arts and Exploratorium.
Daniel Preston is accredited with being the first scientist to successfully
deploy a fleet of UAV operating under swarming and flocking algorithms,
developed by Dr. Anthony Calise and himself.
Selected Publications
Calise, A.J., Preston, D., “Design of a Stability Augmentation System for
Airdrop of Autonomous Guided Parafoils,” AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control
Conference, Keystone, CO, August 2006.
Calise, A. J. , Preston, D., and Ludwig, G., “Modeling for Guidance and Control
Design of Autonomous Guided Parafoils,” AIAA 19th AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator
Systems Technology Conference, Williamsburg, VA, May 2007.
Calise, A.J., Preston, D., “Approximate Correction of Guidance Commands for
Winds, AIAA 21st AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems Technology Conference,
Williamsburg, VA, May 2009.
Calise, A.J., Preston, D., “Swarming/Flocking and Collision Avoidance for Mass
Airdrop of Autonomous Guided Parafoils,” AIAA J. of Guidance, Control, and
Dynamics, Vol. 31. No. 4, July-August 2008, pp 1123-1132.
<http://www.innovateli.com/daniel-preston-the-thrust-behind-luminati-aerospace/>
Daniel Preston, The Thrust Behind Luminati Aerospace
OCTOBER 8, 2015
By GREGORY ZELLER
Daniel Preston, CEO of Luminati Aerospace, the Brooklyn startup with plans to
build communication drones at Calverton, seems comfortable punching the
throttle.
Incorporated in Delaware in April and registered as a New York LLC in July,
Luminati is ready to fly. Company officials, including Preston, are already
relocating to Riverhead, and the firm is pushing for speedy approvals of its
plans, which include expanding a former skydiving school at Calverton and
taking over the former Navy facility’s main runway.
“Technology moves at a fast pace,” Preston told Innovate LI. “We’re set up for
expressly that purpose: being able to move quickly.”
Quick has always been part of Preston’s makeup. A college student by age 12 —
he dropped out to start his first company, which he sold for “seven figures” —
the Brooklyn entrepreneur then launched a next-generation parachute company
that built more than $20 million in sales to the U.S. military.
After selling that, and faced with a numbing five-year non-compete, Preston
started tinkering with his family’s 100-year-old cacao business. The result: A
mammoth expansion of family farms in the Dominican Republic, plus new lines of
gourmet chocolate here, followed by a Brooklyn distilling operation that
produces cacao-laced rum, liqueurs and Widow Jane, a stand-in-line-popular
bourbon. There’s also Botanica, a Venetian-style cocktail bar.
Oh, and Cacao Biotechnologies, which is developing skin care products and
pharamaceuticals. And Brooklyn Cacao, which designs and builds custom machinery
for the chocolate trade.
Now comes Luminati, around which the rumors are flying almost as fast as
Preston. Topping the list: Whether “the client” is Facebook or a similar global
enterprise that plans to use drones to laser-beam Internet connectivity into
hard-to-reach locales. Despite the buzz, Preston was tightlipped Thursday about
Luminati clients and the exact nature of his company’s work, noting repeatedly
that he was “not at liberty to discuss” specific customers or their potential
uses for Luminati’s next-generation aircraft.
“We’re not secretive by nature, but there is a propriety aspect to what we’re
developing,” said Preston, who holds more than 100 patents in 17 countries and
doubles as the startup’s chief technology officer. “I have to respect the
confidential nature of this program and our client.”
Preston did allay fears that Luminati Aerospace would be engaged in the testing
of military drones over heavily populated Long Island by noting “what we’re
designing is commercial in nature.”
“We design and manufacture the drones,” he added. “How they’re used is up to
the client.”
Preston did offer a few details about his startup, which he described as a
“dream team of engineers and university professors.” The CEO is a
self-described “inventor and engineer with expertise in UAVs that’s both
commercial and military in nature,” and Luminati Aerospace – “We had a little
fun with the name,” Preston noted, nothing sinister there – will bring 40
full-time jobs to Calverton “immediately.”
The aircraft it develops and tests at the former Grumman site will be
solar-powered, making Luminati Aerospace “a very green project,” and Preston is
hoping to not only develop his next-gen drones on Long Island, but secure
manufacturing here as well.
The CEO would not reveal how large an investment his company is making at
Calverton, referencing only a “multi-million-dollar” project nor speculate on
future hiring by his firm, though Preston did note that “aerospace projects are
not small.”
“There’s money being invested locally,” he said. “Jobs being created locally.
And long-term, this has the potential to be significantly larger than what it
is today.”
While negotiating with Riverhead officials over runway restrictions and other
land-use and property-specific details – the use of a second runway on the site
and the need for a new control tower are both “to be determined,” Preston noted
– Luminati Aerospace is already wheels up.
It plans to be “up and running immediately,” according to its CEO, and already
has a rudimentary production schedule in the making.
“For the next two years, we’ll be in what we’re considering a skunkworks phase:
research, development, testing and low-volume manufacturing,” Preston said. “We
hope to enter into a production phase in year three.”
As for the long and sad history of grand proposals for the Calverton enterprise
zone – and potential public backlash against a not-quite-defined drone-testing
and manufacturing enterprise next door – the CEO expressed confidence.
“There’s one thing tying all of those previous proposals together: They weren’t
aviation-based,” Preston said. “Our application is in line with what the
facilities were originally developed for and what they’re ideal for.
“Compared to what’s gone on there, people won’t even notice what we’re doing,”
he added. “We’re quiet and we’re very green, and we should have a positive
impact on the region with job creation.”
<https://www.longislandpress.com/2015/10/09/mysterious-drone-company-mum-on-riverhead-factory-plans/>
Mysterious Drone Company Mum On Riverhead Factory Plans
BY TIMOTHY BOLGER OCTOBER 9, 2015
A secretive aerospace company planning to launch solar-powered drone factory on
eastern Long Island has sparked rumors that Facebook may have contracted the
firm to beam Internet service to Third World nations.
Luminati Aerospace, which last month bought a 16-acre plot for $3 million from
the recently closed Skydive Long Island, is requesting permission from the Town
of Riverhead to fly its next-generation drones from a limited-use runway at the
Enterprise Park in Calverton known as EPCAL—but remains tight-lipped about the
unmanned aircraft it plans to manufacture.
“There’s a confidential nature to our contract and I have to respect the wishes
of our client,” Daniel Preston, CEO and chief technology officer for Luminati,
told the Riverhead town board Thursday. When reporters pressed him for more
information after the meeting, he said the company “is not at liberty to
discuss” details or reveal their client other than to say they’re commercial
and not military.
Facebook did not respond to a request to confirm or deny whether they hired
Luminati, but the social media company has reportedly been developing similar
large solar-powered drones—circling the planet at 60,000 to 90,000 feet, above
commercial aircraft traffic—to expand Internet service to vast unconnected
parts of the world. Google, which reportedly has a similar plan using balloons,
did not respond, either.
Despite the limited information available—even Luminati’s website is only one
page with no links or contact information, just a photo of an antique
astrology-style sketch of the sun—officials spoke highly of the company, which
derives its name from the ancient secret society The Illuminati.
“It’s so exciting to think that once again we may be on the forefront of
aviation,” Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter said, referring to Grumman’s
storied history at the site and the many firsts in flight that earned LI the
nickname, The Cradle of Aviation. “This is the biggest thing that’s happening
on Long Island right now.”
Hofstra University Transfer
Preston echoed the sentiment. Although there is little known about the project,
what is clear is that the plan is only in its infancy. Should the town board
approve Luminati’s request to use one of two runways at the industrial park,
the company also plans to ask for permission to expand a building at the site
to fit manufacturing equipment too large for the current facility.
Preston noted that the electric-powered drones neither burn fuel nor have the
same deafening roar as standard aircraft, so the impact on neighbors and the
environment should be minimal.
“By aviation standards, or by any standards…we are very quiet operation and
very green in nature,” he said.
If approved, it would take an estimated six months to build the plant. In the
meantime, Preston said the company’s leadership is moving to Riverhead and
accepting applications for about 40 designers, machinists and other workers.
Walter said he hopes to approve the runway agreement by Nov. 4.
The news came shortly after Suffolk County lawmakers passed the first
legislation on LI regulating small consumer drones, with other local
municipalities and the Federal Aviation Administration considering similar
regulations. Small drone sightings reported to local authorities saw a fivefold
increase so far this year over all of last year on LI, the Press exclusively
reported last month.
<http://www.newsday.com/business/luminati-aerospace-llc-in-riverhead-plans-40-tech-jobs-for-development-of-drones-1.10936750>
Internet drone venture in Riverhead plans 40 tech jobs 'immediately'
Updated October 8, 2015 7:59 PM
By KEN SCHACHTER
Luminati Aerospace LLC, whose plan to make high-altitude, solar-powered drones
in Calverton is said to be backed by a major Internet company, will create 40
tech jobs "immediately," chief executive Daniel Preston said Thursday.
<http://riverheadlocal.com/2015/10/21/luminati-dream-team-makes-pitch-for-runway-at-former-grumman-site/>
A new era in aerospace emerges
“The identity of our client has been disclosed to the town supervisor, Mr.
Walter, subject to the terms of a nondisclosure agreement,” Preston said.
Facebook and Google — both Fortune 250 companies — have recently disclosed they
have engineers working to develop solar-electric communications UAVs.
Facebook launched its first full-scale communications UAV in July as part of
its Internet.org effort, which aims to bring wireless internet to everyone in
the world – especially to those in places where internet isn’t available.
The UAVs will have the ability to essentially “beam” wireless internet down to
the earth’s surface. They would fly at about 65,000 feet – above plane traffic,
in unregulated airspace.
“Our client will fund the substantial up-front capital expenditures for
facilities, equipment and materials,” Preston said, “and make periodic payments
to Luminati as specified milestones are achieved.”
....
He said Luminati is also in two contract with universities totaling $1.5
million and has already set up meeting with the presidents of Stony Brook
University and Brookhaven National Lab to do two programs locally.
Members of Luminati’s “dream team” who also addressed the board last night
included company co-founder and chief scientist Dr. Anthony Calise, who
participated in the design of the Patriot missile at Raytheon Missile Systems,
designed navigation and guidance systems for the U.S. Air Force and is a
professor of aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech.
“I’m very excited about the project that’s about to emerge,” Calise said. “The
people we’ve attracted to this are really the best in the country.”
<http://www.govtech.com/network/Can-Solar-Powered-Internet-Beaming-Drones-Solve-the-Broadband-Access-Dilemma.html>
Can Solar-Powered, Internet-Beaming Drones Solve the Broadband Access Dilemma?
A well-known tech company plans to use a skydiving property to develop drones
that can beam Internet service to communities that currently go without.
BY KEN SCHACHTER, NEWSDAY / OCTOBER 6, 2015
Facebook's Aquila drone is solar powered and would deliver Internet by beaming
it to regions that lack it. FACEBOOK/JAY PARIKH
(TNS) -- A widely known dot-com company plans to use the newly acquired
property of a skydiving company in Calverton, N.Y., to develop high-altitude
solar-powered drones that can beam Internet service, the property's former
owner said Monday.
Raymond F. Maynard, who sold a hangar and the 16.3-acre property of Skydive
Long Island, said Calverton was chosen because the buyer was seeking a
limited-use airport.
Maynard said that Brooklyn-based Luminati Aerospace LLC, which acquired the
property, is backed by a widely known company that plans to build the drones,
flying at 90,000 feet, to beam Internet service to communities that lack
service. Luminati incorporated in New York in July, according to government
documents.
Maynard said that a nondisclosure agreement barred him from identifying the
company funding Luminati. "[But] you already know their name," he said.
Maynard said that he was first approached to sell the property in January and
that his health issues helped seal the deal as negotiations continued.
"I've owned the business for 29 years," he said. "I've had a fabulous career. .
.. . It was a great run."
Efforts to reach Luminati, which is scheduled to make a presentation at a Town
of Riverhead meeting Thursday, were unsuccessful.
Google has been researching the feasibility of transmitting Internet service
from balloons.
And Facebook has been working to develop a fleet of solar-powered drones that
could beam data to the ground. In a post on the social network Monday, chief
executive Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook also is working with French satellite
company Eutelsat Communications SA to launch a satellite in 2016 to transmit
Internet service to sub-Saharan Africa.
"Over the last year Facebook has been exploring ways to use aircraft and
satellites to beam Internet access down into communities from the sky," he
said. "I'm excited to announce our first project to deliver Internet from
space. . . . We're going to keep working to connect the entire world -- even if
that means looking beyond our planet."