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AeroX Begins Statewide AAM Weather Study in North Carolina 

AeroX has ini­at­ed in North Car­oli­na, a weath­er study for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) in col­lab­o­ra­tion with low-alti­tude weath­er spe­cial­ist, TruWeath­er Solu­tions, reports a press release. This U.S study is to assess weath­er con­di­tions across the State and engage the com­mu­ni­ty “in plan­ning how to build the weath­er infra­struc­ture required to expand exist­ing and future drone and air taxi ser­vice.”

First, who is AeroX?

The company’s web­site says, “AeroX is a non­prof­it organ­i­sa­tion of busi­ness, gov­ern­ment and com­mu­ni­ty part­ners focused on cre­at­ing a nation­al mod­el ecosys­tem for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty in Win­ston-Salem and Forsyth Coun­ty, North Car­oli­na.”

The com­pa­ny was award­ed fund­ing by the State’s Gen­er­al Assem­bly to con­struct an urban AAM sys­tem to help car­ry car­go, lead­ing to pas­sen­gers, across the region. The com­pa­ny iden­ti­fied weath­er as a crit­i­cal com­po­nent to build­ing this sys­tem.

Basil Yap

AeroX Pres­i­dent Basil Yap, com­ment­ed, “We’re con­duct­ing a statewide study so we can be ahead of the game, iden­ti­fy­ing opti­mal con­nec­tion points that can pro­vide weath­er data at the speed with which com­pa­nies and com­mu­ni­ties are ready to expand AAM ser­vice.”

The release states, “Weath­er con­di­tions such as wind, rain, fog and storms sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact a drone’s abil­i­ty to oper­ate and func­tion in low-alti­tude air­space, whether that is with­in dense­ly devel­oped urban areas or in rur­al, coastal and moun­tain­ous ter­rains.” It con­tin­ues, “Know­ing where weath­er haz­ards exist and where to deploy sen­sors that can pro­vide crit­i­cal data are key steps in enabling broad and rou­tine drone use.”

TruWeath­er Solu­tions will first assess such con­di­tions and poten­tial haz­ards in the State before con­ven­ing drone man­u­fac­tur­ers, uncrewed air traf­fic man­age­ment ser­vice providers and oth­ers to dis­cuss the find­ings. 

Chris Zarzar, com­mer­cial prod­uct man­ag­er for TruWeath­er Solu­tions, explained, “Our goal is to pro­vide data that allows com­pa­nies and com­mu­ni­ties to deploy drone and air taxi ser­vices in the most cost-effec­tive, high­est val­ue pos­si­ble. At the end of this study, we expect to be ready to pur­chase and deploy weath­er sen­sors at loca­tions across the state, as well as sup­port pub­lic agen­cies that seek to enable AAM in oth­er com­mu­ni­ties and regions.” 

The study began this month and is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed in May. Any­one with plans to deploy AAM or is inter­est­ed in attend­ing the work­shops should sub­mit their con­tact infor­ma­tion to:-

https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/3661fa321dec4d75b87210b711a6f9ab or email: info@ncaerox.com .   

For more infor­ma­tion

https://truweathersolutions.com/

(Top image: TruWeath­er Solu­tions soft­ware sim­u­lates and dis­play winds, allow­ing analy­sis to iden­ti­fy opti­mal loca­tions for weath­er sen­sors that will sup­port drone oper­a­tions. Orange areas depict high wind speeds that would not be fore­cast­ed by exist­ing weath­er report­ing meth­ods with­out addi­tion­al sens­ing instru­ments)

eVTOL Insights is part of the Industry Insights Group. Registered in the UK. Company No: 14395769