Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) third-party service provider, SkyGrid, has extended its Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with MIT Lincoln Laboratory to continue developing high-resolution weather forecast systems for safe, scalable AAM operations.
The new phase runs through July 2027 and represents a shift from evaluation to maturation of high-resolution forecast (HRF) models for future operational use.
The partnership, which began in October 2025, has evaluated Lincoln Laboratory’s HRF data using SkyGrid’s AAM simulation environment to study how higher-fidelity, higher-resolution forecasts affect operational planning in terms of both safety and efficiency. That work produced an early framework for AAM-specific weather requirements, presented at the AIAA AVIATION 2026 Forum.
“Forecasts built for conventional aviation typically cannot resolve low-altitude conditions, lacking the resolution needed to capture the rapid, small-scale dynamics of weather phenomena near the planetary boundary layer,” SkyGrid said in a 12 November press release. The second phase of the partnership intends to address that gap by upgrading the models to better capture low-altitude weather, evaluating the forecasts with sensors deployed across a range of operational sites, and developing SkyGrid’s simulation environment and decision support tools to more realistically depict AAM operations.
Jordan Cohen, R&D Lead at SkyGrid, said the team will be “stress-testing the models against more hazards, in more regions and with real-world uncertainties”. A range of test sites across the US will be used.
In the new phase, the team will improve Lincoln Laboratory’s HRF forecast accuracy by integrating high-resolution terrain and sensor data, including surface weather stations, aircraft reports, radiosondes, NEXRAD and LIDAR. The project’s HRF hazard products will be expanded to include turbulence, 3-D visibility, icing and precipitation. In addition, probabilistic forecasting in HRF models will be introduced.
Ultimately, the proposed weather forecast requirements are intended to inform regulators, service providers and operators as the industry scales.
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