ANRA Huddle: Charting the UAM Flight Path
As cities become more populated, the need for efficient and sustainable transportation options is increasing and has led to the emergence of commercial urban air mobility projects. But establishing a robust ecosystem for innovation and growth is a major hurdle, as well as developing technology and supporting infrastructure such as landing ports and charging stations. Safety, affordability, and noise pollution must also be addressed for this mode of transportation to become widely-adopted.
ANRA recently broadcasted the second episode of ANRA Huddle, a new webinar series that explores exciting topics in the world of autonomous aircraft, robotics, and the systems that enable them.
For this episode, moderated by Dronelife Editor Miriam McNabb, we gathered senior UAM experts from NASA’s Aeronautics Research Institute (NARI) at Ames Research Center and SESAR’s Joint Undertaking, for a discussion with ANRA CEO Amit Ganjoo for a discussion on the latest developments in UAM technologies and the challenges that lay ahead for private industry and regulatory stakeholders to realize a functioning commercial ecosystem.
You can view it here
Miriam McNabb – Moderator
Editor, Dronelife
Miriam McNabb is a fascinated observer of the emerging drone industry and the regulatory environment for commercial drones. Miriam is also the CEO of JobForDrones.com, helping new commercial drone businesses find customers. She is a frequent international speaker at drone industry events and writes for DRONELIFE on current news, financial trends, and FAA regulations. Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and over 20 years of experience in high tech sales and marketing for new technologies. She has worked in a variety of industries including finance, software, research, and non-profit. Miriam can’t wait to see what happens next.
Robin Garrity
Senior External Affairs Officer at the SESAR 3 Joint Undertaking
Robin is the Senior External Affairs Officer at the SESAR 3 Joint Undertaking, based in Brussels, Belgium. Robin is a former air traffic controller from the United Kingdom and has been involved with the integration of unmanned aircraft with manned aviation for more than 20 years. He was instrumental in designing the European Union’s ground-breaking U-space programme and has been intimately involved with that programme ever since. He is a member of the EUROCAE Technical Advisory Council, ICAO’s UAS Advisory Group and has just been elected co-Rapporteur of the Small UAS and UTM Working Group in ICAO’s new Advanced Air Mobility Study Group.
Parimal Kopardekar (PK)
Director of NASA Aeronautics Research Institute (NARI) at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley
He is responsible for exploring new trends and needs related to aviation in the areas of autonomy, aeronautics manufacturing, and advanced air mobility. He also serves as NASA’s senior technologist for Air Transportation Systems and principal investigator for the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM) project. He was formerly manager of the NASA’s Safe Autonomous System Operations Project, which developed autonomy related concepts, technologies and architectures that will increase efficiency, safety, and capacity of airspace operations.
Prior to that, he managed Next Generation Air Transportation Systems (NextGen) Concepts and Technology Development Project. He enjoys initiating new concepts and technology ideas that increase airspace capacity and throughput, reduce delays, and reduce the total cost of air transportation. At NASA, he has initiated many innovative research projects including reduced crew operations, net-enabled air traffic management, autonomy for airspace operations, Shadow-Mode Assessment using Realistic Technologies for the National Airspace System (SMART NAS), and low-altitude airspace management system focused on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) operations.
He is the winner of the 2020 NASA Government Invention of the Year and the 2018 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals (known as the Oscars for the federal workforce) in the “Promising Innovations” category. In 2017, he was named among the 25 most influential people in commercial drone industry. He has published over 50 conference and journal papers with three best paper awards, delivered more than 20 keynote talks at national and international conferences, and participates as an expert with media on topics related to unmanned aircraft systems, urban air mobility, autonomy, and supply chain management. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and recipient of numerous NASA awards including Outstanding Leadership Medal and Engineer of the Year. He holds a doctorate and master’s degrees in Industrial Engineering and bachelor’s degree in production engineering. He serves as the co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Aerospace Operations. He also serves as an adjunct faculty and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses related to operations management and supply chain management.
Amit Ganjoo
Founder & CEO, ANRA Technologies
Amit Ganjoo is the Founder and CEO of ANRA Technologies with offices in London, Washington DC, Tallinn and New Delhi. ANRA is a global provider of end-to-end uncrewed aircraft operations and traffic management solutions for enterprises, operators, and airspace managers.
He has over 20 years of aviation, telecom, robotic, and wireless experience in both the federal and the commercial space.
He is an engineer and licensed pilot, a Board Member of GUTMA, Co-Chairs ASTM Standards Working Group for UTM and Co-Chairs ASTM UAM Interoperability Working Group. He was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to the FAA Advanced Aviation Advisory Committee (AAAC).
If you missed our first episode on integrating drones and advanced software solutions for powerline infrastructure, you can catch it here.