Earlier this spring, DronePort Network and ResilienX announced their partnership on the new Oklahoma-based BVLOS project, aimed to put Tulsa at the forefront of commercial BVLOS operations with their new test site. This shows significant movement towards the company’s goals since Commercial UAV News last spoke with the team at ResilienX about their AAM OptiX platform, an uncrewed flight operations management system.

With recent executive orders calling upon the advancement of American drone operations, the industry is in a pivotal point where training, testing, and deploying BVLOS missions across all sectors is needed. The Tulsa ecosystem is set to be the main hub for this kind of training and includes expertise from air traffic management, pilot training, weather forecasting, and cyber security.

CUAV News has caught up with Andrew Carter, Founder & CEO of ResilienX to learn more about their BVLOS project in Oklahoma and why it is crucial for the advancement of unmanned airspace operations of the future.

Commercial UAV News: Why was Tulsa chosen as a key site for this BVLOS initiative, and how does it align with your strategic goals?

Andrew Carter: The state has a rich history in aviation. Now they’re making targeted investments, attracting innovative companies, and enabling routine drone operations. It checks all the boxes for advancing real-world UAS deployment and that’s exactly the kind of partner we’re looking for.

Tulsa Innovation Labs (TIL) was awarded a Tech Hubs grant from the Economic Development Administration. One of the subawards, awarded to DronePort Network, was for a project called Secure Autonomy Feedback and Evaluation Testbed (SAFE-T). This project builds upon the significant groundwork already laid in the Tulsa region and aims to dramatically accelerate the adoption of drones across a wide range of use cases.

CUAVN: ResilienX is on a 4-year contract with DronePort on this project. What are the major goals this project expects to hit by the end of year 4?

Carter: Simply, our goal is to enable highly automated BVLOS operations in an urban environment. The project will also encompass suburban and rural areas, but the idea is that if it works in an urban environment, it can be re-used or scaled back for less complex environments. There are key areas where we expect to see progress; automation, BVLOS infrastructure, and urban complexity are top of mind.

  • Automation: To make the unit economics work for most use cases, it needs to require less than one human to operate a drone. This project will focus on the automation elements needed to get to one-to-many operations, meaning one operator is controlling many drones at once.
  • BVLOS Infrastructure: We can’t rely on human observers watching the sky. This project will set up reusable third-party services for the strategic and tactical deconfliction needed for true BVLOS operations. Third party, in this case, means that a drone operator can come in and use the services and data available in the region without needing to put their own systems in.
  • Urban Complexity and Scalability: We need to be able to support operations that are occurring where there is financial incentive to do them. While there are a myriad of drone use cases and applications, there tend to be a higher density of use cases where there is a higher density of people. Urban operations are more complex and involve a higher level of risk than most rural applications, so we need to make sure we have the right risk mitigations in place to support these more complex operations.

CUAVN: What about AAM OptiX was it that caught the attention of the Tulsa test site?

Carter: AAM OptiX approaches the challenge with a deep understanding of the complexity and the safety-critical nature of integrating digital infrastructure components. From the outset we recognized that no single company could address all facets of the problem. Instead of building a monolithic, vertically integrated system, we engineered a collaborative, interoperable, system-of-systems, which is essential for enabling safe, routine UAS operations at scale.

However, safety-critical environments are not as simple as “plug and play”. Mature individual systems, integrated together, don’t automatically result in mature system-of-systems. That’s why we began by developing a model-based system engineering (MBSE) framework that clearly defined the required functions and performance metrics of the digital infrastructure. The model was tightly traced to existing standards, regulatory requirements, and engineering artifacts to ensure traceability and rigor throughout our development process. 

Then we sourced digital infrastructure components that met the requirements across UAS Traffic Management (OneSky), multi-sensor track fusion for a common air picture (Sunhillo), active cyber security posture monitoring (Assured Information Security), weather intelligence (TruWeather Solutions), and our own in-time aviation safety management system (IASMS). Midway through integration, we identified a gap in data flow management and developed a secure Data Exchange to serve as a clearinghouse for data among sensors, digital infrastructure components, and end users. This dramatically reduced integration time, eliminated data silos, and enabled scalable, secure, and standards-aligned data sharing architecture. We validated the system with aviation grade testing rigor, all traceable to the MBSE model, ensuring not just functionality, but measurable performance and compliance.

The result is a holistic and differentiated platform which confidently answers critical questions:

  • What does the platform do?
  • How well does it do?
  • Why does it do it?
  • Is there proof that it does what you say it does?

What truly sets AAM OptiX apart is that it’s not a closed system. We designed it from the ground up to be modular and extensible. Data Exchange is the cornerstone for this flexibility by controlling access without relying on proprietary APIs. Everything is developed in alignment with published or emerging standards, ensuring the ecosystem remains open, adaptive, and future proof.

CUAVN: What challenges do you anticipate in scaling urban BVLOS operations, and how do you plan to overcome them?

Carter: We anticipate two major challenges, getting FAA approval and the business models and unit economics behind the project.

  1. FAA Regulatory Approval: We will be asking the FAA to approve high levels of automation based on several technologies and data feeds designed to monitor, assess, and mitigate the risks associated with UAS operations in a complex environment. To mitigate this, we are proactively engaging with the FAA to ensure they understand our objectives and have early visibility into our systems engineering analysis of the risks and the traceability to how the SAFE-T is designed to mitigate them.
  2. Business Model Alignment: The infrastructure and systems necessary to achieve highly automated BVLOS operations in an urban environment come with a cost. In some cases, that cost can be amortized across multiple users of the infrastructure or across many flights. However, because there are many companies and products at the table, the challenge remains to align business models so that everyone is made whole and customers can still afford the service.

Instead of figuring out “future commercialization” we will be working on fitting all partners into a business model that is understood upfront, at a price point that users can afford, that scales properly.

CUAVN: How does ResilienX support regulatory pathway development for BVLOS operations?

Carter: Our goal is to push the envelope to demonstrate scalability. We’ve observed that many pilot programs, trials, and proofs of concept do not take the next step and start to scale, despite the “success” of these programs in demonstrating feasibility. We are working with industry to figure out why it isn’t scaling and bringing those lessons learned to the SAFE-T project to solve the underlying pain points. As solutions are identified, we will be bringing those findings to the FAA to help support the development of regulations that are commercially viable. A distinct way we are doing this is by participating in standards organizations such as ASTM and industry organizations such as GUTMA.

CUAVN: Tulsa's BVLOS infrastructure is described as ‘commercially viable.’ What does that mean in practical terms, and how is it achieved?

Carter: For this project, the term ‘Commercial Viability’ is two-fold.

1.  Accessible Infrastructure: UAS operators have access to the BVLOS infrastructure. Current regulations make it difficult to incorporate 3rd party systems, data, and infrastructure into your operation. The FAA set up the near-term approval process (NTAP) to solve this problem. It allows the 3rd party system or data feed to be “approved” once and each operator that wants to use it goes through a highly accelerated approval process vs needing to re-validate the entire system for each new partner (even when the system hasn’t changed). The FAA currently has a few services with a clear NTAP pathway, and SAFE-T plans to implement three, giving operators who want to fly in Tulsa access to an approved Airspace Surveillance Service, UAS Traffic Management platform, and Weather Information Provider.

2.  Economic Sustainability: UAS operators can afford to use the BVLOS infrastructure. We need to understand the unit economics involved in various use cases and applications and develop pricing models that operators can afford. If an operator is losing money every time they fly, they are unlikely to want to scale. If we can flip that script so that most applications are making money on every flight, then we are going to start to see the scale that we are shooting for. The results of this effort will likely trickle down into industry pricing models and pricing. Currently, most business models are malleable, and pricing is often driven by a revenue target vs value. Scaling within a collaborative ecosystem will help to inform these business models and demonstrate how the various ecosystem partners can scale at a price point their customers can afford.

CUAVN: What does success look like by the end of the four-year SAFE-T project?

Carter: Success means that Tulsa has become the blueprint for safe, scalable, and economically viable urban UAS operations, not just a testbed, but a national model. By project’s end, we will have:

  • Demonstrated a fully integrated system-of-systems that enables highly automated, BVLOS drone operations in urban and surrounding environments.
  • Proven that such operations can be performed safely, reliably, economically viable, and at scale, across a range of real-world use cases from emergency response and infrastructure inspection to package delivery and environmental monitoring.

Beyond technical demonstrations and testing, success also includes measured impact for the region. This includes:

  • Commercialization: SAFE-T will result in a turnkey platform and regulatory pathway that reduces the time and cost for new regions and operators to replicate Tulsa’s success
  • Economic development and community benefit: SAFE-T is a magnet for drone providers, service providers, and operators to invest in the region. This results in community-centered operations that realize the value of autonomous drone operations for residents.

As the SAFE-T project moves forward, Tulsa is poised to become a national model for urban BVLOS operations, proving that with the right infrastructure, collaborative partnerships, and forward-thinking business models, routine and scalable uncrewed aviation is not just possible, but practical. By aligning regulatory, technological, and economic strategies, the Tulsa initiative is setting the stage for the next chapter in advanced air mobility—one where drones are seamlessly integrated into daily life, bringing tangible benefits to both industry and the communities they serve.