Boeing Saudi Arabia and GACA launch AAM Airspace and Operational Feasibility Analysis with support from SkyGrid and KAUST

Sky­Grid has announced the acti­va­tion of the Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) between Boe­ing Sau­di Ara­bia and the Gen­er­al Author­i­ty of Civ­il Avi­a­tion of the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia (GACA) through the launch of an AAM Air­space and Oper­a­tional Fea­si­bil­i­ty Analy­sis.

Work­ing along­side King Abdul­lah Uni­ver­si­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (KAUST), the ini­tia­tive will assess the oper­a­tional and reg­u­la­to­ry via­bil­i­ty of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) in the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia, sup­port­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of the GACA AAM Roadmap and advanc­ing a path­way toward future Auto­mat­ed Flight Rules (AFR) oper­a­tions across the King­dom.

The Fea­si­bil­i­ty Analy­sis will eval­u­ate AAM routes and coop­er­a­tive air­space areas, CNS and oth­er infra­struc­ture, and asso­ci­at­ed ver­ti­ports and air­ports to demon­strate the via­bil­i­ty of safe and sus­tain­able AAM oper­a­tions for both pilot­ed and remote­ly pilot­ed aer­i­al vehi­cles.

The project will address oper­a­tions under Visu­al Flight Rules (VFR), Instru­ment Flight Rules (IFR), and ulti­mate­ly Auto­mat­ed Flight Rules (AFR) — a frame­work for ful­ly autonomous flight. Mod­eled on Boeing’s Con­cept of Oper­a­tions for Auto­mat­ed Flight Rules, the study tar­gets medi­um-den­si­ty, medi­um-com­plex­i­ty oper­a­tions with col­lab­o­ra­tive and respon­si­ble auto­mat­ed sys­tems.

Cap­tain Sulaiman Almuhaime­di, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of Avi­a­tion Safe­ty and Envi­ron­men­tal Sus­tain­abil­i­ty at GACA, said: “The acti­va­tion of this MoU and the launch of this fea­si­bil­i­ty analy­sis rep­re­sent an impor­tant step toward enabling a safe, scal­able, and future-ready Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem in the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia.

“This ini­tia­tive reflects GACA’s com­mit­ment to advanc­ing inno­va­tion while main­tain­ing the high­est lev­els of safe­ty and oper­a­tional integri­ty. We look for­ward to col­lab­o­rat­ing with Boe­ing Sau­di Ara­bia, Sky­Grid, and KAUST to sup­port the imple­men­ta­tion of the GACA AAM Roadmap through the devel­op­ment of prac­ti­cal reg­u­la­to­ry and oper­a­tional frame­works that will help shape the future of air mobil­i­ty and con­tribute to the Nation­al Strat­e­gy of Trans­porta­tion and Logis­tics Ser­vices (NTLS).”

Work­ing togeth­er, the par­ties will con­duct a Gap Analy­sis to iden­ti­fy the required air, ground, and air traf­fic man­age­ment tech­nol­o­gy and infra­struc­ture enablers need­ed to sup­port UAM and autonomous air­craft oper­a­tions.

The Gap Analy­sis will lead to an Infra­struc­ture and Tech­nol­o­gy Roadmap for scal­ing from VFR and IFR oper­a­tions to AFR oper­a­tions in the King­dom. The analy­sis will also lead to defined roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties of AAM oper­a­tional stake­hold­ers and pro­pose reg­u­la­to­ry changes to enable seam­less inte­gra­tion of AAM sys­tems into exist­ing air traf­fic man­age­ment frame­works.

Asaad Aljo­moai, Pres­i­dent of Boe­ing Sau­di Ara­bia, said: “Boe­ing Sau­di Ara­bia is proud to take this promis­ing ini­tia­tive as part of a con­sor­tium with key stake­hold­ers, trans­lat­ing the vision of our MoU with GACA into con­crete action. This fea­si­bil­i­ty study reflects our com­mit­ment to Sau­di Vision 2030 and to sup­port­ing Sau­di Arabia’s ambi­tion to become a glob­al leader in Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty, in align­ment with the strate­gic objec­tives of the GACA AAM Roadmap.

“Through col­lab­o­ra­tion with GACA, Sky­Grid, and KAUST, we aim to sup­port the imple­men­ta­tion of the GACA AAM Roadmap by devel­op­ing action­able tech­nol­o­gy, oper­a­tional, and reg­u­la­to­ry rec­om­men­da­tions that will help enable safe, scal­able, and next-gen­er­a­tion AAM oper­a­tions across the King­dom.”

The Fea­si­bil­i­ty Analy­sis will lever­age SkyGrid’s exper­tise in dig­i­tal oper­a­tions and AAM traf­fic man­age­ment, includ­ing traf­fic sur­veil­lance, micro-weath­er intel­li­gence, ver­ti­port resource man­age­ment, and GNSS spoof­ing detec­tion tech­nolo­gies.

The project will deliv­er a com­pre­hen­sive base­line assess­ment and key gap analy­sis, pro­vid­ing valu­able input to sup­port the imple­men­ta­tion and advance­ment of the GACA AAM Roadmap and enabling safe, scal­able, and effi­cient Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty oper­a­tions across the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia.

KAUST, which pre­vi­ous­ly signed an MoU with Sky­Grid to advance AAM tech­nolo­gies and oper­a­tions in Sau­di Ara­bia, will pro­vide research and tech­ni­cal exper­tise to under­pin the sci­en­tif­ic foun­da­tions of the analy­sis. 

Jia Xu, CEO of Sky­Grid, said: “Safe autonomous air­craft oper­a­tions depend on reli­able sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness, resilient posi­tion­ing and tim­ing, and intel­li­gent air­space and aero­drome man­age­ment. This fea­si­bil­i­ty analy­sis will help define how advanced automa­tion and coop­er­a­tive traf­fic man­age­ment can enable safe, scal­able AAM oper­a­tions across increas­ing­ly com­plex air­space envi­ron­ments — cre­at­ing a path­way from today’s Visu­al and Instru­ment Flight Rules toward ful­ly Auto­mat­ed Flight Rules in the future.”

Dr. Ian Camp­bell, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent, Nation­al Trans­for­ma­tion Insti­tute, KAUST, added: “KAUST is unique­ly posi­tioned to con­tribute to this ini­tia­tive through our exper­tise in engi­neer­ing, data sci­ence, and sys­tems research.

“Togeth­er with Boe­ing Sau­di Ara­bia, Sky­Grid, and GACA, we will help val­i­date the oper­a­tional con­cepts and tech­ni­cal infra­struc­ture need­ed to ensure the Kingdom’s AAM ecosys­tem meets the high­est stan­dards of safe­ty and effi­cien­cy.”