Michigan Awards $2M to Five Advanced Air Mobility Projects

Michi­gan is allo­cat­ing $2 mil­lion to five advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) projects aimed at test­ing drone and aer­i­al tech­nolo­gies in real-world gov­ern­ment oper­a­tions across the state.

The projects were select­ed by the Michi­gan Depart­ment of Labor and Eco­nom­ic Opportunity’s Office of Future Mobil­i­ty and Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion (OFME) through the Michi­gan Mobil­i­ty Fund­ing Platform’s AAM Statewide Mobil­i­ty Chal­lenges. Nex­tEn­er­gy admin­is­ters and man­ages the pro­gramme.

The ini­tia­tive pairs tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies with five state depart­ments to address spe­cif­ic oper­a­tional needs, includ­ing envi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing, infra­struc­ture man­age­ment, pub­lic safe­ty and agri­cul­ture.

The Michi­gan Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment, Great Lakes, and Ener­gy is part­ner­ing with Kohtari to test aer­i­al sens­ing for air and water qual­i­ty mon­i­tor­ing, envi­ron­men­tal inci­dent response and data col­lec­tion.

“By deliv­er­ing safer, more fre­quent and more cost-effec­tive insight across the Grand Riv­er water­shed, this project can help teams act soon­er on water qual­i­ty and algal bloom risk, while cre­at­ing a scal­able mod­el for oth­er water­sheds and sup­port­ing the wider growth of water inno­va­tion in the Great Lakes region.” — James Sum­sion, CEO, Kohtari

The Michi­gan Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources will work with Orb Aero­space on VTOL drone tech­nol­o­gy for aer­i­al map­ping, wild­fire mon­i­tor­ing and nat­ur­al resource man­age­ment.

“This part­ner­ship is excit­ing because of the abil­i­ty to gath­er more valu­able data and map­ping, and with greater speed and accu­ra­cy. That means bet­ter, more pre­cise infor­ma­tion that will help the DNR in all facets of nat­ur­al resources man­age­ment and pub­lic safe­ty.” — Scott Bowen, Direc­tor, Michi­gan Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources (DNR)

For trans­porta­tion, the Michi­gan Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion has select­ed West­wood AI to devel­op a road intel­li­gence plat­form com­bin­ing drone and vehi­cle-gen­er­at­ed data to sup­port road­way assess­ments and infra­struc­ture man­age­ment.

“Har­ness­ing advanced aer­i­al mobil­i­ty tech­nolo­gies can help agen­cies see inci­dents from a clear per­spec­tive, respond faster on the ground, and keep con­ges­tion from becom­ing chaos. Inci­dents and con­ges­tion on our road­ways can quick­ly become dan­ger­ous for first respon­ders and oth­er dri­vers, but this tech­nol­o­gy can improve safe­ty for every­one on our road­ways.” — Bradley C. Wieferich, Direc­tor, Michi­gan Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion

Michi­gan State Police will part­ner with Motoro­la Solu­tions to test drone detec­tion capa­bil­i­ties for pub­lic safe­ty, secu­ri­ty plan­ning and mon­i­tor­ing around major events and crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture.

“Michi­gan State Police is a leader in the adop­tion of tech­nol­o­gy to help pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties from the grow­ing risk of unau­tho­rized drones. By iden­ti­fy­ing and track­ing air­space activ­i­ty, they can make faster, more informed deci­sions that sup­port pub­lic safe­ty.” — Todd Piett, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Com­mand Cen­ter and Cloud Solu­tions, Motoro­la Solu­tions.

The fifth project, involv­ing the Michi­gan Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture and Rur­al Devel­op­ment and AVOL, will focus on pes­ti­cide drift inves­ti­ga­tions. The aer­i­al tech­nol­o­gy is intend­ed to col­lect haz­ardous sam­ples, detect pes­ti­cide residues and doc­u­ment crop dam­age while reduc­ing risks to inves­ti­ga­tors.

“Avol aims to reduce pes­ti­cide-drift inves­ti­ga­tion times while achiev­ing pre­ci­sion detec­tion, cre­at­ing a path­way to Michi­gan-based oper­a­tions, man­u­fac­tur­ing part­ner­ships, and reduc­ing thou­sands of labor hours and mit­i­gat­ing poten­tial job­site risk, while expand­ing its air­craft capa­bil­i­ties to include sur­vey­ing, data gath­er­ing, and intel­li­gence.” — Nate Poon, Co-Founder & CEO, Avol

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

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