An economically viable integration of drones and VTOLs requires governments to measure how weather will locally influence planned operations e.g. logistics and mobility as well as unplanned operations e.g. rescue and emergency.

As many of us know today, weather conditions - especially in complex environments like cities - play a non-negligible role in the attempt to make Innovative Air Mobility a real, safe, efficient and profitable business.

A key aspect of this business is to elaborate and conclude successful private-public partnerships where decision makers in the public sectors need to “bet” on most viable platforms for their territory. This complex task requires the characterization of the weather limitations for these machines on specific places and territory. An additional key aspect is related to the evaluation of if and by how much the weather infrastructure needs to be enhanced e.g. how much investment is required in sensors to ensure operational viability.

DM-AirTech has developed a suite of solutions as well as a strong ecosystem to bring light to those aspects and to support cities and countries to evaluate how much drones and VTOLs can effectively operate in their territories and which drone types and companies are best suited for the intended operations as well as to identify and quantify the weather related limitations that need to be overcome to create a viable and successful market.

To address this challenge for the City of Los Angeles, Urban Movement Labs, Truweather Solutions and DM-AirTech formed a consortium last year to uncover the microclimate implications in urban areas for Urban Air Mobility, a summary of which can be found HERE.

Leveraging DM-AirTech’s solutions, the consortium, recommended an augmented sensing network, forecasted operability of eVTOLs in the area and provided a rational to ingest weather consideration while selecting the best-serving vertiport locations for the city.

It is clear that the best time to embed weather knowledge into an IAM operation is upfront i.e. before major investment has been debuilt and anything has been promised. After major choices have been made, there will be a limited ability to maximize profitability and this is why DM-AirTech urges IAM projects to embed microweather assessments from the earliest stage.

Click HERE for further information!

via: DM-AirTech