Urban Air Mobility (UAM) company Wisk is partnering with NASA to focus on the safe integration of autonomous aircraft systems into Urban Air Mobility applications at a national level.

The partnership is part of NASA's Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign strategy to develop key guidance for UAM operations. To accelerate U.S. leadership in emerging automated aviation technology, the partnership will also address key challenges such as certification and standards development.

Initially, the partnership will address critical National Campaign safety scenarios, with a focus on autonomous flight and contingency management, including collision avoidance and flight path management.

Through the partnership, NASA and Wisk plan on executing optimized opportunities to evaluate architectures, perform simulation studies, and develop an overall validation framework that can be leveraged for autonomous flight assessments. This will be done in close cooperation with industry standards organizations, and it might include guidance on airspace structure, flight procedures, minimum performance requirements for participating aircraft, and standards that will influence the evolution of autonomous systems.

“Our partnership with NASA will bring together our market-leading expertise in autonomy with the unmatched technical capabilities of NASA,” says Gary Gysin, CEO of Wisk.

“The frameworks and recommendations developed through this collaboration will not only advance autonomous passenger flight but also increase the overall safety of aviation.”