【Hard Soap Hard Soap (1977)】

Boeing has invested in a startup that's trying to make autonomous flight the next big thing.

The Hard Soap Hard Soap (1977)company announced today that it has invested in Near Earth Autonomy, which develops technology for unmanned flying vehicles of all shapes and sizes -- from drones to flying cars to commercial planes.

The two companies have also announced a long-term product development partnership. Charles Toups, Boeing's vice president of Research and Technology, will join NEA's board.

Sanjiv Singh, NEA's CEO and co-founder, told Mashable that Boeing's investment is part of a broader effort to create and promote an industry-wide standard for for autonomous flight. In Boeing's ideal future, every flying machine meets three goals: fly safely, land safely, and navigate without GPS.

At the moment, Singh says, what makes a vehicle truly autonomous is the ability to make decisions. Commercial planes can already fly when set to autopilot, but still rely on GPS to orient themselves, and are unable to analyze surroundings and adjust to circumstances without the help of a pilot.

Since its foundation in 2011, NEA has pursued technology to aid vehicles in this decision-making process, including sensors for mapping and survey, collision identification, and landing zone assessment. Their work with Boeing will continue to center around tools to help vehicles synthesize data from its surroundings and output its own plan.

"In a power plant refinery or an oil rig, a storage container, you're looking for all kinds of different indications of the situation on the ground at the facility," Singh says. "You're looking for failure, is there an encroachment of vegetation, that kind of thing."

"The biggest challenge is to find a compact and affordable system that can find all this data and put it together in a quick fashion."

But the biggest task ahead of Boeing and NEA has little to do with development: It's convincing the U.S. government to give their vision a shot.

The Federal Aviation Administration, says Singh, has a "pretty strong bar" for autonomous vehicles. Currently, only small aircrafts with an operator available to take over are permitted in U.S. airspace. Boeing's and NEA's agenda going forward will need to center around proving to the FAA that such vehicles can be trusted to fly safely.

Boeing has made multiple investments in autonomous flight: A few weeks ago, it acquired Aurora Flight Services, another company that develops drones. It's clear that Boeing thinks autonomous flight is the way of the future -- the question is whether it can get others on board.