Vigilant Aerospaces’ FlightHorizon airspace management and uncrewed traffic management (UTM) system has been selected as the airspace management system for the Skyway36 droneport in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Skyway36 is a leading droneport in the United States and serves as an “airport for drones” and for larger Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) aircraft, like air taxis.
Vigilant Aerospace is a provider of multi-sensor detect-and-avoid and airspace management software for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) and advanced air mobility (AAM). With FlightHorizon, Skyway36 will be able to track and coordinate drones, detect intruding aircraft and provide a safe environment for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flight of drones, which is essential for growing the UAS industry.
Skyway36 is the Osage Nation’s aerospace innovation zone, providing dedicated facilities for UAS flights. It is designed to support advanced air mobility and drone missions including survey drones, first responder drones, autonomous delivery aircraft and other missions. The facility includes a state-of-the-art UAS indoor test facility operated by Windshape, hangar and office space under development, a 3,000-foot runway suitable for larger, fixed-wing drones, and a certified helipad for both conventional helicopters and for new electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOLs).
“Skyway36 is working to provide and build premium infrastructure and this partnership with Vigilant Aerospace and its FlightHorizon system helps to keep us at the forefront of the industry. As an officially designated Tech Hub by the U.S. Economic Development Administration, the Tulsa region and our droneport can play an important role in the national development of autonomous systems,” said Russell Goff, CEO of Osage, LLC.
The site is managed by DronePort Network, under contract to Osage LLC and is the first commercial node on the Skyway Range Flight Corridor, a 114-nautical mile drone corridor and one of the most ambitious advanced air mobility projects in the nation. Skyway Range consists of four major nodes for autonomous flight testing along multiple routes and is supported in part by a grant from the US Economic Development Administration.
“As autonomous flight gathers momentum, we’re seeing a growing number of flights from droneports like Skyway36,” said Craig Mahaney, CEO of DronePort Network. “To scale safely and successfully, we must ensure an environment designed to enable long-distance drone flights, air traffic monitoring and advanced safety systems. Vigilant Aerospace’s FlightHorizon allows Skyway36 to provide these services and to attract more operators by providing a world-class facility and technology for a wide variety of uncrewed flight operations and testing.”
Kraettli L. Epperson, CEO of Vigilant Aerospace noted that Skyway36 provides a significant capability not just regionally but nationally for furthering autonomous flight Installing FlightHorizon at one of the nation’s first commercial droneports is a milestone for the industry and helps to set the standard for shared infrastructure at droneports everywhere. “Being the first node on the Skyway Range Flight Corridor also provides significant opportunities to make Skyway36 and this region a national proving ground.”
FlightHorizon is based on two NASA patents and fuses data from a range of sources including aircraft transponders, radar, drone autopilots, and live FAA data to create a single picture of airspace around a drone. The software predicts trajectories and provides standards-compliant avoidance commands to the remote pilot.
