SkyGrid and Wisk Release ‘Enabling Scalable Urban Air Mobility Through Automated Flight Rules’ White Paper

 Sky­Grid and Wisk have pub­lished a new white paper out­lin­ing how Auto­mat­ed Flight Rules (AFR) can enable the safe and scal­able inte­gra­tion of Urban Air Mobil­i­ty oper­a­tions into glob­al air­space.

Titled Enabling Scal­able Urban Air Mobil­i­ty Through Auto­mat­ed Flight Rules, the doc­u­ment builds on the Auto­mat­ed Flight Rules Con­cept of Oper­a­tions which was joint­ly released by Sky­Grid, Wisk, and Boe­ing in Decem­ber 2025. It advanced the con­ver­sa­tion from a high-lev­el frame­work to a focused appli­ca­tion for low-alti­tude UAM oper­a­tions.

As pas­sen­ger-car­ry­ing eVTOL air­craft move clos­er to com­mer­cial oper­a­tions, inte­grat­ing high-tem­po flights into already com­plex urban air­space remains a crit­i­cal chal­lenge. Sky­Grid and Wisk pro­pose that scal­able UAM will require a coor­di­nat­ed evo­lu­tion of air­space man­age­ment, includ­ing:

• Advanced auto­mat­ed traf­fic man­age­ment sys­tems
• The intro­duc­tion of new air­space struc­tures, referred to as Class X air­space
• The estab­lish­ment of a new oper­at­ing mode, Auto­mat­ed Flight Rules

AFR is designed to com­ple­ment — not replace — exist­ing Visu­al Flight Rules (VFR) and Instru­ment Flight Rules (IFR).

While tra­di­tion­al flight rules rely on human-to-human voice coor­di­na­tion and air traf­fic con­trol sep­a­ra­tion ser­vices, AFR enables prop­er­ly equipped air­craft to use cer­ti­fied automa­tion for con­flict man­age­ment and deci­sion-mak­ing. This shift sup­ports high­er-den­si­ty oper­a­tions while main­tain­ing safe­ty and reduc­ing con­troller work­load.

The white paper focus­es specif­i­cal­ly on how AFR can sup­port UAM oper­a­tions in low-alti­tude (< 4000ft. AGL) urban envi­ron­ments, where flights are expect­ed to oper­ate at tem­pos com­pa­ra­ble to major air­ports and in close prox­im­i­ty to exist­ing Class B, C, and D air­space.

Jia Xu, CEO of Sky­Grid, said: “Urban Air Mobil­i­ty can­not scale under today’s human-cen­tric traf­fic man­age­ment mod­el alone. Auto­mat­ed Flight Rules rep­re­sent the next log­i­cal evo­lu­tion in avi­a­tion — lever­ag­ing cer­ti­fied automa­tion to enable pre­dictable, high-den­si­ty oper­a­tions while main­tain­ing the high­est stan­dards of safe­ty. This white paper pro­vides a prac­ti­cal frame­work for how that future can be real­ized.”

The paper also intro­duces a lay­ered approach to auto­mat­ed con­flict man­age­ment, begin­ning with strate­gic con­flict man­age­ment pri­or to take­off through demand-capac­i­ty bal­anc­ing and oper­a­tional intent val­i­da­tion.

This approach con­di­tions traf­fic flows in advance, enabling high-den­si­ty oper­a­tions with­out over­whelm­ing tra­di­tion­al air traf­fic con­trol (ATC) sys­tems. Sub­se­quent lay­ers address in-flight con­flict man­age­ment and col­li­sion avoid­ance, cre­at­ing a com­pre­hen­sive frame­work for scal­able UAM inte­gra­tion.

Erick Coro­na, Head of Sys­tems and Oper­a­tions Inte­gra­tion at Wisk, said: “As we pre­pare for com­mer­cial oper­a­tions, air­space mod­ern­iza­tion must evolve along­side air­craft inno­va­tion, which is why Wisk is design­ing the Gen 6 air­craft to be com­pat­i­ble with the AFR con­cepts out­lined in this whitepa­per.

“This paper out­lines how AFR and auto­mat­ed traf­fic man­age­ment can unlock scal­able, effi­cient oper­a­tions in urban envi­ron­ments, enabling us to deliv­er safe and acces­si­ble autonomous AAM at scale.”

Togeth­er, these ele­ments estab­lish a scal­able oper­at­ing mod­el for low-alti­tude UAM, com­bin­ing auto­mat­ed traf­fic man­age­ment, new air­space struc­tures, and Auto­mat­ed Flight Rules to enable high-den­si­ty oper­a­tions beyond today’s sys­tem con­straints.

Sky­Grid and Wisk invite reg­u­la­tors, ANSPs, and indus­try stake­hold­ers world­wide to col­lab­o­rate in val­i­dat­ing and advanc­ing this con­cept to sup­port the safe, long-term growth of Urban Air Mobil­i­ty.