Automation specialist Airio will use its Intelligent Flightpath Navigation System to help Varon Vehicles to prepare to develop urban air mobility networks in several South American cities. Through a partnership announced on March 10, Airio will help to define the “virtual lanes” around which Varon intends to structure air taxi services.
The Intelligent Flightpath Navigation System uses proprietary algorithms to search for, evaluate, and select defined flight paths for each aircraft operating in the shared urban airspace. The data it generates will be integrated into Varon’s planned Traffic Management System and be shared with the on-board operator of each vehicle.
Colombia-based Varon is combining specialist tools to develop what it describes as “infrastructure networks” consisting of the virtual lanes that will connect vertiports from which eVTOL aircraft will operate.
The company has started work on its home city of Cartagena on Colombia’s coast. It also sees potential for other South American cities—including the Colombian capital Bogota, Lima in Peru, and Santiago in Chile—to be early adopters of urban air mobility services.
In January, Varon announced a partnership with eVTOL aircraft developer Jaunt Air Mobility to prepare for the launch of commercial aircraft operations, once the U.S. manufacturer’s Journey model completes certification under FAA Part 29 rules by 2026. In February it signed up architecture group PS&S to help develop the required ground infrastructure and also TruWeather Solutions, which will provide meteorological data and micro-weather prediction capability for the Traffic Management System.
“We need to make our systems scalable and utterly safe,” said CEO and cofounder Felipe Varon. “There’s only so much airspace we can occupy, which means we have to rely on highly automated systems for our operation, especially on smart ways to generate optimum routes for each flight, on the go.”
