Blog Post
FlyOhio to Partner with NASA in Deployment of Ohio's Advanced Air Mobility Ecosystem
Ohio Department of Transportation • May 17, 2021
CAL Analytics Part of Team Developing Framework for Statewide Strategy
COLUMBUS - FlyOhio, a collaboration of public, private and academic institutions led by DriveOhio’s advanced air mobility (AAM) group, has been selected to participate in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign. The award focuses on system development through integrated vehicle and airspace demonstrations in real-world scenarios that are critical to safe and effective commercialization.
“In Ohio, we have a longstanding history with advancing aerospace technology, and we continue to pursue new opportunities to support the development of cutting-edge technology,” said Governor DeWine. “We are eager to join with NASA in a new, broad coalition of institutions across the state who are investing in the advancement of this transformative aerospace technology.”
Building upon Ohio’s ground-breaking work in “beyond-line-of-sight” drone systems and SkyVision
work at Springfield-Beckley Airport and leveraging relationships established through the U.S. Air Force’s Agility Prime program, FlyOhio’s project will incorporate multiple use cases for personal travel and delivery of goods across the State of Ohio. The FlyOhio team is comprised of key aircraft manufacturers, operators, and airspace service providers and suppliers, as well as Ohio regional and city planning organizations, local stakeholders, academic institutions, and health care networks.
The multiyear program lays out an innovative framework to design, test and deploy a statewide AAM strategy focused on the movement of people and goods. Specifically, the winning proposal outlines test applications in health care delivery, air taxi or air metro, and regional air cargo transport.
The program’s development will be supported by the FlyOhio AAM Economic Impact Study due to be released June 6, 2021. A unique research effort to forecast the potential economic impacts of urban and regional air mobility, the report provides data on Ohio’s major urban centers and air corridors connecting its largest cities to rural communities. Also, the report examines Ohio’s advanced aviation infrastructure needs, revenue potential, and prospective job growth, among other economic indicators.
“Advanced Air Mobility technology is revolutionizing the transportation industry and Ohio is well positioned to lead market adoption as these solutions scale. At DriveOhio, we are committed to developing and deploying connected, automated, shared, and electric vehicles and infrastructure on the ground and in the air. This program is a manifestation of that ethos, and we are excited to increase the advanced aviation investment in Ohio’s economy,” said Howard Wood, executive director at DriveOhio.
Home to more than 550 aerospace companies and three of the nation’s premier aerospace centers— NASA Glenn Research Center, NASA Plum Brook Station and Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright Patterson Air Force Base—Ohio is the nation’s largest aerospace industry supplier, with a workforce of more than 38,000 in the aviation and aerospace industry.
“JobsOhio is focused on accelerating Ohio’s economic growth and our partnership with FlyOhio and NASA will help to fulfill this mission,” said J.P. Nauseef, JobsOhio president and CEO. “Ohio’s economy has strong momentum as it emerges from the pandemic, and this powerful industry coalition is more evidence that Ohio is becoming the go-to spot in the Midwest for some of America’s top innovators. This campaign further positions Ohio’s multi-billion-dollar mobility economy to compete in this fast-growing and dynamic industry sector.”
About FlyOhio:
An initiative of DriveOhio, FlyOhio
operates out of the Ohio Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Center and seeks to make Ohio airspace among the first in the nation ready to fly beyond line of sight. FlyOhio works with public, private, and academic partners to develop, test, and deploy the technology needed for drones to safely fly long distances without fear of collision, ultimately bringing the use of unmanned aircraft for freight, package, and personal transportation closer to reality.
Campaign Partners:
Industry
ANRA Technologies
Cal Analytics/ResilienX
Columbus Regional Airport Authority
Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA)
Kitty Hawk
Moog
OneSky Systems, Inc.
Reliable Robotics
United Airlines
VyrtX
Flight Profiler, LLC
Academia and Research
Air Force Research Laboratory
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
Center of Science and Industry (COSI)
Cleveland Clinic
MedFlight of Ohio
Ohio Aerospace Institute
Ohio Federal Research Network
Ohio University
The Ohio State University
University of Cincinnati
Economic Development
JobsOhio
Dayton Development Coalition
Ohio Southeast
One Columbus
REDI Cincinnati
Regional Growth Partnership
Team NEO
Metropolitan Planning
Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission
Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission
OKI Regional Council of Governments
***
Original post
by Ohio Department of Transportation.
Columbus, OH – CAL Analytics, in coordination with the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), has launched a low-altitude air traffic management system for drones to support statewide operations. As the number of uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS), or drones, grows, a robust system for managing the low-altitude airspace where these aircraft operate is necessary to ensure safety. While the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) provides air traffic control for traditional aircraft flying in certain airspaces, low-altitude traffic management for drones is the responsibility of individual operators. Currently, drone pilots are required to keep the aircraft within sight to avoid a collision. A UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system enhances safety by enabling sharing of flight details between UAS operators, providing a digital tool for flight planning, and allowing operators to eventually operate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) while continuing to minimize the risk of collision. “The introduction of this vital capability continues Ohio’s tradition of innovation in the aviation community while prioritizing safety,” said Rich Fox, director of the Ohio UAS Center at ODOT. “As we collaborate with others at the newly opened National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence, we expect this to be the first of many industry-leading activities coming out of that state-of-the-art facility.” Following several state sponsored research efforts to determine the best way to develop and deploy traffic management for uncrewed aircraft in Ohio, this system, implemented by CAL Analytics, provides interoperability where any user can enroll to share and receive flight information. As drone technology continues to advance, traffic management will be a key enabler of BVLOS operations, which currently require special permission from the FAA once stringent safety requirements are met. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to continue our collaboration with ODOT by deploying this discovery and synchronization services to fully realize this first of a kind operational UTM capability throughout the state of Ohio,” said Dr. Sean Calhoun, managing director of CAL Analytics. “This realization is the result of a lot of industry development, including the essential work from The Ohio State University research team and sponsored research from the Ohio Federal Research Network (OFRN). We are looking forward to working with the various interested stakeholders throughout the state and the FAA to learn from this system and to start scaling UAS operations throughout Ohio.” ODOT and the City of Hilliard will be the first organizations to enroll in the system and begin exchanging information as they look to leverage UAS as a tool for everything from inspection and traffic monitoring to onsite situational awareness for first responders, such as police and fire department dispatches. “Hilliard is excited to leverage this and other airspace services that Ohio has established to enable our first responder drone operations” says Deputy Police Chief for Hilliard, Ron Clark. “These services will be critical for us to achieve FAA approval and operate our drones in a safe and effective manner.” In the coming years, more advanced and BVLOS drone operations will increase in Ohio, which means multiple operators may be flying in the same area to deliver medical supplies, perform emergency services, conduct infrastructure inspections, and even deliver commercial packages. For safe and successful scaling of commercial drone operations, it’s imperative that pilots have situational awareness for strategic deconfliction. While both private and public organizations can enroll in the traffic management system, this resource is particularly valuable for other state agencies and local governments across Ohio. These services are available at no cost to any operator or fleet manager that requests access and goes through the onboarding process. To learn more or request access, please contact CAL Analytics at info@calanalytics.com.
Columbus, OH – CAL Analytics has been selected by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) to provide statewide Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) operation services using CAL’s UAS Service Supplier (USS) platform. This agreement is the culmination of a multi-year build-up of CAL’s UTM service platform that started in 2019 with a $1.4M award from the Ohio Federal Research Network (OFRN) to develop an interoperable and resilient contingency management system for Ohio UAS Operations. Through this work, Ohio continues its leadership in the innovation, research, development and utilization of UAS technology. CAL’s USS will provide ODOT a wide array of services, including a centralized monitoring and management capability of statewide infrastructure, such as communications, navigation and airspace surveillance equipment, critical for UAS Beyond Visual Line-of-Sight operations. Additionally, CAL will provide ODOT with enhanced operational planning and situational awareness for its extensive statewide utilization of UAS for Visual Line-of-Sight operations. “Ohio and ODOT in particular, has been on the forefront of embracing UAS technology, so we are very excited to have our USS platform provide the basis for statewide utilization,” said Dr. Sean Calhoun, Managing Director of CAL Analytics. “We have put a lot of our system development focus making sure our platform provides a host of performance and safety related features. Our work with NASA and integrating our health and integrity monitoring capabilities into our deployments will ensure statewide systems can scale in a robust and safe way.” “CAL Analytics technology will help us take support of our uncrewed aircraft operations to the next level. Not only will our remote pilots use it for situational awareness and safety, but we are exploring the ability to expand this service to first responders across the state to better coordinate air support during an emergency,” said Rich Fox, UAS Director – Ohio UAS Center for ODOT. This agreement between CAL Analytics and the Ohio Department of Transportation is big win for the State of Ohio and the state of UAS ecosystem growth. Ohio is a leader in the Advanced Air Mobility business development aspect of UAS operations and the individuals involved in the OFRN are proud to have played a part in supporting new technology and innovation development,” said Maj Gen (Ret.) Mark Bartman, OFRN Program Executive for Parallax Advanced Research.
Columbus, OH – CAL Analytics has been awarded a NASA Phase II-E Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award to deploy their Health & Integrity System (HIMS) to the Ohio Department of Transportation’s Uncrewed Traffic Management (UTM) system. This will be the first-time an In-time System-wide Safety Assurance (ISSA) system will be deployed and integrated into a functioning UTM environment for operations in an urban environment. This initiative is researching ways in which the resiliency and robustness of UTM ecosystems can and should be improved. The primary result of those activities was the formulation of a flexible, service-based architecture for Health & Integrity (H&I) monitoring, assessment, and mitigation of complex, federated System of Systems (SoS). This aptly named Health & Integrity Management System (HIMS) adds another dimension of capability to the UTM architecture wherein it is intended to holistically monitor and respond to the ecosystem, providing continuity between independent UTM services from a system reliability perspective “Being able to evaluate our ISSA implementation in an operational environment that Ohio offers will be a critical step for validating the our various HIMS safety monitors and system interactions what will be key to ensuring a robust UTM ecosystem for safe low-altitude operations,” said Dr. Sean Calhoun, Managing Director of CAL Analytics. “Our HIMS system not only provides various real-time monitoring of key systems, such as surveillance and navigation, but we also provide capabilities assessing the impacts to operations and how to relay that information to operators.” The CAL HIMS system builds off the Resilienx, Inc. FRAIHMWORK platform to realize a scalable ISSA system tailored specifically to UTM applications. The open architecture approach to the ISSA system enables seamless integration of future system monitoring and scalability. The effort builds off Ohio and NASA’s existing AAM National Campaign partnership, which includes System-Wide Safety, and The Ohio State Universities UTM development effort sponsored by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT). “Safety is the number one goal at the Ohio Department of Transportation, operational assurance is the most important component in any aviation operation. As we continue to move towards highly automated and remote operations in the airspace, the health of systems and sensors providing information becomes crucial to maintain the safety for transportation on the ground and in the air,” said Fred Judson, UAS Director – Ohio UAS Center for ODOT. “Safety is the key to innovation in aviation. Learning how and when to automate our safety monitoring, assessment, and mitigation functions enables us to design air systems that benefit all of us.” said Dr. Misty Davies, NASA’s Project Manager for System-Wide Safety Project.
