HAT.tec: autonomy software and aircraft integration

HAT.tec is a German software specialist whose commercial role sits between aircraft manufacturers, equipment suppliers and the people using their systems. Its main product, SCALE, brings information from different sources into a shared mission interface. Public references now include police helicopter integration as well as research and demonstration work with Airbus.

The useful company question is therefore where HAT.tec's software becomes part of a larger product or customer workflow. It does not manufacture the aircraft in those references. Its contribution is software, integration and expertise in the division of work between people and automation.

Company identity, ownership and size

The legal disclosure identifies HAT.tec GmbH, registered in Neubiberg under Munich commercial-register number HRB 244278. The headquarters address is Lilienthalstraße 15, south of Munich. Yannick Brand and Fabian Schmitt are named as the managing directors.

According to its company history, HAT.tec was founded in 2018 by Brand, Schmitt and Axel Schulte. It grew out of the Institute of Flight Systems at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich. Its name expands to Human Autonomy Teaming Technologies, reflecting that research origin.

The company is privately held. Its June 2026 corporate description says it was initially financed through contracts and subsequently received support from a German investor, without naming that investor. Founding a company, running it and owning a particular percentage of it are distinct facts; the public disclosures establish the first two more clearly than the current shareholding structure.

The same June 2026 release reports more than 70 employees. This is a company-reported headcount threshold, with no published full-time-equivalent reconciliation. Annual revenue is not disclosed in the primary records reviewed here. The profile consequently treats HAT.tec as a specialist software business without assigning an unsupported revenue estimate or formal SME classification.

SCALE, custom development and consulting

HAT.tec's SCALE product page describes a modular software family for aviation applications spanning civilian, public-service and defence customers. Its stated role is to combine geospatial and sensor information for pilots and other operators, with configurations that vary by function and number of users.

This is an integration product proposition. A customer may already own the aircraft and its equipment but need a coherent way to use the resulting information. HAT.tec says SCALE can accommodate additional modules and customer-defined interfaces. That describes the intended architecture; it does not imply that every possible sensor or aircraft combination is already supported.

Alongside SCALE, the company offers custom software development. The public catalogue covers assistance systems, human-system integration and software for managing different vehicles. It lists deployment options ranging from tablets to qualified hardware. These are categories of development work rather than a public price list of interchangeable licences.

Its consulting services add an earlier stage in the customer relationship: analysing use cases, defining system requirements and designing how people interact with automation. That creates a commercial continuum from engineering advice through software integration to a configured product.

For an equipment supplier considering a partnership, the distinction matters. A reusable product module may be sold across several programmes, while a customer-specific interface requires engineering effort tied to one configuration. The public record does not reveal how HAT.tec divides revenue between licences, development contracts and ongoing support.

Bavarian Police provides a named adoption reference

In June 2026, HAT.tec announced SCALE integration into the Bavarian Police's new Airbus H145 helicopters. The release identifies collaboration among Airbus Helicopters, HAT.tec, Helsing and the police helicopter squadron, and connects the announcement with the fleet's final handover.

This is stronger commercial evidence than an unnamed customer claim or trade-show demonstration. It identifies an organisation, an aircraft family and the software's place within the completed fleet programme. The disclosed eight-aircraft total concerns the helicopter fleet, however; it is not a published count of separately priced HAT.tec contracts.

The company describes the integration as bringing several information sources into one interface. Claims about reduced workload remain the supplier's assessment because the release supplies no independent comparative measurement. What is observable is the named integration relationship and its association with an actual institutional fleet.

Airbus establishes the earlier development relationship

Airbus independently names HAT.tec in its December 2022 multi-domain demonstration release. The event involved German and Finnish defence organisations and multiple industrial partners. HAT.tec appears as an autonomy and mission-technology participant.

That record places the company within a larger development consortium. It does not disclose HAT.tec's individual contract value or imply that it owns the wider programme. The relevant business evidence is access to integration work alongside an aircraft prime and other specialist suppliers.

An Airbus account published in 2024 adds why the software mattered. Airbus describes work on the H145M demonstrator's cockpit and software, and identifies HAT.tec as a supporting software partner. The account treats operator workload and aircraft integration as development concerns.

For commercial readers, this explains a practical barrier to replacing an embedded supplier: software must fit the platform and its intended users. A demonstrator relationship can generate relevant engineering knowledge, although a later production role still depends on the actual customer programme.

Partnerships expand the interfaces around SCALE

The March 2026 Smith Myers announcement describes integrating ARTEMIS information into SCALE for a European law-enforcement helicopter fleet. The agency is not named in that announcement, so it should not automatically be identified with the separately disclosed Bavarian programme.

The commercial value of this record is its named equipment partner and defined software connection. It shows SCALE being positioned as the interface through which another supplier's output reaches a customer. It does not establish the size of the contract or an exclusive relationship between the companies.

In May 2026, HAT.tec and Project Q announced a memorandum concerning the integration of HYDRIS with SCALE. Their stated aim was to connect heterogeneous systems and support joint development and market engagement, including maritime applications.

This has a different maturity from the named police integration. It is a partnership framework for extending the software ecosystem, without a disclosed buyer order. The importance lies in the proposed division between an integration layer and mission-management software, rather than evidence of a newly purchased maritime fleet.

Reading the commercial milestones together

Date	Public evidence	Company-specific significance
2018	Company founding history	University research became a commercial software business
December 2022	Airbus demonstration release	HAT.tec named within a prime-led development team
June 2024	Airbus demonstrator account	Software and cockpit integration role described by the platform manufacturer
March 2026	Smith Myers integration release	Named equipment interface for an unnamed agency
May 2026	Project Q memorandum	Proposed extension of the partner ecosystem
June 2026	Bavarian Police integration release	Named institutional fleet reference and updated workforce disclosure

The university relationship also remains visible beyond the founding story: the MissionLab partner directory lists HAT.tec among participating companies. A research partnership and a commercial deployment are different stages, but together they explain the business's path from human-automation research into platform integration.

HAT.tec belongs in a comparison with Quantum Systems or Shield AI when the question concerns autonomy software and industrial partnerships. The comparison should preserve their different product boundaries rather than assume that every autonomy company sells the same thing.

The next useful evidence is a repeat customer integration, a clearly defined support relationship or a disclosed production programme role. For HAT.tec, those developments would show whether its engineering knowledge and SCALE interfaces translate into a broader repeatable software business beyond the individual references already public.