Imagine you live in the suburbs and your normal 45-minute drive into downtown for work has heavier traffic than usual, and now you’re going to be late. But instead of stressing about how you’ll miss a morning meeting, you go to your closest vertiport, board an electric air taxi, relax as the air taxi autonomously flies to downtown, and you make it to work with time to spare. Not only did you minimize your commute time, but you’ve also traveled in a safer and more sustainable way.
Third-Party Service Providers (TSPs) are essential for this vision of autonomous aviation, which will make flight more accessible, affordable, and environmentally friendly. In the context of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), autonomy refers to a system that can operate independently, uses advanced algorithms to assist in making real-time decisions in a complex environment, and increases efficiency and safety. Autonomy is a catalyst for AAM, and by leveraging existing aeronautical data alongside new high-integrity data, aspects of flight can be automated.
As we integrate autonomy into our systems, it doesn’t imply the complete absence of human involvement. Instead, it minimizes the necessity for constant human interaction, freeing up human operators to focus on overall oversight and strategic action. The current airspace is already experiencing a shortage of air traffic controllers, and the increased scale that AAM will operate at will add to this overload. To meet the demands of AAM and provide a common operating picture of the airspace, ground-based TSPs like SkyGrid can build advanced systems that enable highly autonomous flight at scale and ease the workload of air traffic control (ATC).
Bridging the Gap Between the Operator and the Aircraft
In both autonomous and highly automated flight, the pilot is usually removed from the cockpit. This means most of the on-board functions that the pilot performed need to be reallocated to ground-based systems like SkyGrid’s. The pilot’s situational awareness no longer comes from being in the sky, so you need to rely on the operational capability of these ground-based systems.
For example, the pilot on an airplane usually watches the sky to avoid other aircraft or observes the weather using the radar on the airplane. When the pilot is removed from the aircraft, the remote pilot in command (RPIC) must rely on a highly advanced system that uses data to perform these functions. The airplane still needs to remain safe under all circumstances and conditions, so these functions now have to be provided through a ground-based system in a way that is safer than what the on-board pilot was doing. The communication and computational processes back and forth between the aircraft and the ground-based system will enable safe and secure flight.
TSPs Meeting Demand
Current airspace management faces challenges regarding airspace capacity. Additionally, the swift advancement of new AAM aircraft might mean regulatory bodies and aircraft manufacturers won’t have the time or bandwidth to develop these autonomous systems effectively. Therefore, external expertise will be crucial in addressing the growing flight volume and complexities introduced by AAM. Leveraging the specialized knowledge and resources provided by TSPs is the most effective solution to navigate these challenges.
Private companies are accelerating innovation and progress in autonomy. As a private entity, a TSP can provide global reach rather than being limited to regional or national boundaries. This capability allows AAM and autonomous operations to expand across various regions and airspace systems. Regulatory standards are essential to guarantee public safety, establish guidelines, and ensure TSP accountability. Overall, for operational efficiency and technological progress, TSPs are the optimal choice.
Supporting Autonomous Flight
To enable autonomy at scale, TSPs can offer a variety of data-driven services. They have the capability to process and manage large volumes of data from multiple sources, ensuring this information remains accurate and current for all autonomous operations. In facilitating airspace management, TSPs can coordinate air traffic to avoid hazards, collisions, and congestion, thereby enabling smooth flights even with rising flight numbers.
To ensure that autonomous operations adhere to all aviation and cybersecurity standards, TSPs will collaborate closely with government agencies such as the FAA to guarantee regulatory compliance. Additionally, TSPs will cultivate specialized technical knowledge and resources necessary for developing and managing high-assurance autonomous systems, enabling them to offer valuable technical expertise. Finally, to facilitate globalization, TSPs can design systems that enable seamless autonomous operations across various airspaces.
Automation can manifest in various ways within a TSP’s system. An RPIC might oversee several aircraft simultaneously. ATC could receive recommendations for alleviating congestion at runways and vertiports. An aircraft on a scheduled flight could autonomously navigate to its designated airport, and then the pilot could manually fly the aircraft with passengers. Given that many air taxis are electric and may have limited battery life, optimal takeoff and landing strategies are crucial. SkyGrid is enabling autonomous flight at scale with services like real-time traffic surveillance, flight plan validation, route optimization, hazard avoidance, dynamic scheduling, and demand capacity balancing- functionalities that can significantly influence operational safety and efficiency.
Need for High-Integrity and Assurance
Since TSPs will help replace the pilot’s eyes in the sky, ensuring high-integrity data and high-assurance software is crucial for the safe operation of autonomous flights. This is the foundation of SkyGrid’s system. Everything is data driven. High-integrity data guarantees reliability and precision, while high-assurance indicates that the system is secure and performs as intended.
When passengers are involved, it leaves no margin for error. Ensuring the system operates correctly at every stage is crucial for providing RPICs, flight operators, pilots, ATC, and air navigation service providers with the necessary data to operate safely within the shared airspace, while guaranteeing that autonomous processes function as intended. Autonomous systems must resist cybersecurity threats to avert system failures.
