Airial Robotics: Airial Robotics develops commercial UAVs for surveillance, logistics and agriculture modeled after gyrocopter/helicopter hybrid that are challenging industry performance limits for safety, payload, range and speed.

Airtonomy: Airtonomy's push-button software automates uniform collection, packaging and analysis of data acquired by autonomous vehicles and sensors, specifically targeting critical energy infrastructure.​

Circle Optics: Circle Optics develops high-resolution, wide field-of-view imaging systems that enable real-time capture without the time and expense of post-processing required by other multicamera systems.​

Fotokite: Fotokite builds actively tethered situational awareness tools for first responders to help them save lives and preserve property.​

ResilienX: The ResilienX software platform monitors the health and integrity of a system and will facilitate fault recovery if a problem is encountered.

TruWeather Solutions: TruWeather delivers custom decision intelligence for drones and eVTOLs via micro-weather dashboard for multi-mission awareness or API service for deep C2 integration.

Windshape: WindShape develops indoor weather simulation technology to test and certify drones under controllable and repeatable flight conditions to enable autonomous and scalable drone applications.

NUAIR and the New York UAS Test Site have received authority from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), commonly referred to as drones, beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) across 35 miles of airspace within New York’s 50-mile Drone Corridor. Current regulations require drone operators to always have a pair of eyes on the drone, limiting the ability to fly long distances. The ability to safely fly BVLOS is the key to unlocking the full potential and economic advantage of routine commercial drone operations like medical and package deliveries.

In 2019, NUAIR and the Test Site received their first BVLOS authority for an eight-by-four mile stretch of airspace from the New York UAS Test Site, at Griffiss International Airport, south to the State Preparedness Training Center in Oriskany. This new airspace authority extends west of Griffiss towards Oneida Lake increasing their overall BVLOS airspace to 35 miles.

NUAIR will utilize the ground-based surveillance systems (GBSS) installed throughout the corridor to monitor air traffic and detect intruder aircraft for BVLOS operations that are taking place at or below 400 feet. Visual observers may also be deployed during BVLOS operations to assure safety of operations.

NUAIR has conducted over 3,800 UAS test flights at the New York UAS Test Site, within New York’s 50-mile Drone Corridor, equating to more than 950 flight hours since operations began in 2014. This new authorization will help advance the reality of routine commercial drone operations and continue to draw companies from across the globe to Central New York and the Mohawk Valley regions.

About NUAIR
NUAIR (Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research Alliance, Inc.) is a New York-based nonprofit with a mission to safely integrate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the national airspace, enabling scalable, economically viable commercial drone operations. NUAIR manages operations of the FAA-designated New York UAS Test Site at Griffiss International Airport, Rome, NY on behalf of Oneida County and is responsible for the advancement of New York’s 50-mile UAS Corridor between Rome and Syracuse, NY.

The team at Airial Robotics looked to test and prove the suitability of their new Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), the CT30 Cargotrak, so of course they sought out the extreme altitude and weather conditions of the Himalaya mountains.
The objective of the mission labeled as “Himalaya Express” was to lift 10kg (22lbs) of freight from a takeoff height of 4000m+ (14,000+ft) under the extreme weather conditions, icy temperatures and stormy winds typically found among the rough mountainous region.

After several hours of scaling the mountain in off-road vehicles, it was time finally time to launch. The CT30 Cargotrak UAV lifted itself along with a 10kg (22lbs) weight from 4275m (14025ft), ascended to 4500m (14763ft) and then successfully landed safely at its original starting point. Extreme weather conditions were noted to be 10°C (14°F) with wind speeds up to 10 m/s or 22 miles/hour.
 
Select the video below to view the “Himalaya Express” mission

Aerial Robotics was recently awarded $500,000 as one of our five finalists selected for the 2021 round of the GENIUS NY competition. The year-long competition is the largest business accelerator for the UAS industry in the world. The accelerator is funded by Empire State Development and housed at CenterState CEO’s Tech Garden incubator in downtown Syracuse, NY. The program continues to help its portfolio companies hit growth milestones, attract outside investments, make connections, local partnerships, and fill  job openings within the region.
 
Since 2017, GENIUS NY has invested $15 million in 26 companies from around the world and brought them to Central New York where they receive assistance with product development, business development, as well as networking opportunities with investors and business leaders. Over the course of five-years, GENIUS NY companies have raised more than $73.5 million in follow-on funding and have created 60 jobs in New York.
 
Beyond the grand prize investments, participants benefit from access to some of the region's premier startup programming, including business planning, industry specific mentors, and access to vetted service providers offering startup friendly terms. The companies are also integrated into the larger regional effort to grow unmanned aerial systems in Central New York and the Mohawk Valley, and will have access to world-leading infrastructure and testing assets.

Company HQ: Rochester, NY
Team Size: 10 employees
Focus: Capturing immersive, real-time experiences through seamless 360° content
Website: www.circleoptics.com
An interview with COO, Ian Gauger

Tell us about your company:
 
Circle Optics is a deep-tech R&D team specializing in wide-field imaging systems. Our first product which we call Hydra, is a 360-degree camera, that can see a complete spherical view. It’s different from any other 360-degree cameras because we can capture higher resolution with less distortion. Due to our method of using novel optics, we can combine field of view together at the speed of light within the optics as opposed to using powerful post processing software. You get real-time high resolution, low distortion spherical images and video.

How did Circle Optics get it’s start?

Circle Optics originally came out of a desire by our founder Zak Niazi to merge two technologies he was seeing used out in the world. He saw that VR headsets were becoming popular while at the same time there were 360-degree cameras on top of Google cars driving throughout the world and he wondered, why can’t I put on a headset on and feel like I’m riding along the Italian Riviera or visit the pyramids in Egypt?

While Zak was at the Institute of Optics University of Rochester, one of the top optics institutes in the world, he learned from an advisor and mentor that this task would be extremely difficult. It just wasn’t possible to do images at that high resolution, with little distortion and high frame rate because it takes a lot of post processing to correct every image. If you are filming 60 frames per second, which most VR does, it would be an incomprehensible amount of data to go through and try to fix after the fact. Already, Google Street view has about a 6 month back log trying to process all of their data before getting it out to their website. A lot of this has to do with the corrections they have to make and even so, you still get some blurry, misaligned images and not a smooth walk-through at 60 frames per second. This all goes back to the issue of parallax and distortion that is inherent in cameras today. In his senior lens design class, Zak tried to solve this issue, but was only able to correctly identify the problem and not yet come up with a solution.

A few years later while he was working in Australia, Zak had a light bulb moment for a solution. Back in the U.S., he began work on the solution, polygon fields of view which align along their edges. Zak realized that no one had done this before so he filed a patent and that is when Circle became a company.

What has your experience been like with current and past GENIUS NY companies?
 
Yes, that is one of the bonuses of GENIUS NY, the network is a lot of the reason why we want to be here. We’ve had a number of conversations with different drone manufacturers currently in the GENIUS NY program like Airial Robotics and past companies such as Fotokite. Right now, we are trying to get a better understanding of their exact needs in order to determine the specs we want to get to with our next system. Our methodology allows for a large range of system sizes, geometries and resolutions, but ultimately there’s tradeoffs. Some companies may want a very small system which is more important than the end resolution, while others may prefer as high a resolution as possible, even if it requires a larger device. So having these conversations has allowed us to understand what the majority of drone companies want to see and to hone in on the specs for what that next system should be.

Hopefully, we will be able to form a partnership with one of these companies in order to get our system on their drone, allowing us to validate to the market that this system works.

How is the data stored and transferred from the Circle Optics camera system?
 
We can run a cord right from the device to transfer data. When we perform demos, we connect the system to a laptop so the computer can run a VR headset. We can also run it straight to an SSD and store it or you can run it to a computer and live stream it over the internet. We are looking into options to incorporate 5G technology or other types of wireless technology so that when you capture something, it can be beamed right back down to the ground in real-time.

Who is your ideal customer?
 
There is a very broad range of companies and a variety of industries that would have interest in our technology. We are starting out by targeting defense and aerospace companies because of their high interest. This is going to help us mature our technology prior to pushing into other commercial markets. A lot of the interest we have been seeing from defense and aerospace comes from the use of our systems on aerial vehicles or electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOLs).

What can we expect from Circle Optics in the future?
 
The next big step for us is to take our technology which we’ve built and demonstrate its capabilities. Also, finding and working with a drone partner in order to continue testing our product to work in various conditions that may come up, such as vibrations or temperature changes. After that, we will continue to produce smaller size versions which will open up lots of other potential opportunities. With a much smaller system, we will be able to produce 360-degree videos in very small spaces such as interiors of vehicles.

Why are you excited to be part of the GENIUS NY program?
 
We are excited to progress our company, to get to market and generate revenue. All of our previous market research pointed us to the drone market indicating UAV’s as being great potential for our technology, so we’re excited to be here to better network with the unmanned ecosystem in order to get our product out the door soon.

What are you looking forward to while staying in Syracuse?
 
Being from Rochester, NY I have been in and out of Syracuse many times, but since I moved downtown here, I get to experience things in a very different way. It’s one thing to just drive in and out to go to the Dome for a concert, verses me biking here to the office everyday or walking around on a Sunday afternoon and coming across a new store or place to see.

What do you plan to do with your funding from GENIUS NY?
 
We have a lot of hiring to do. Even though we have been growing really fast this past year, we still need to continue to grow in order to expand our product and company. Some immediate needs we have are adding business development staff as well as Human Resource and IT Support. We would also like to build some partnerships and start collaborating with local vendors who can help us build the mechanical and electrical components of our systems.

Be sure to check out Circle Optic’s website for information and to stay connected.

This years GENIUS NY Pitch Finals premieres on October 26 at noon. Watch our 5 finalists pitch their innovative startups to a panel of judges and see who is awarded $1 million.

A Q&A with Josh Reidy, CEO at Airtonomy

Company HQ: Headquartered in Grand Forks, North Dakota
Team Size: 25 – 30 employees
Focus: Drone Data Management
Website: www.airtonomy.ai

Tell us about your company:
 
Airtonomy enables its customers to collect data uniformly using autonomous vehicles, in particular drones. We do that by making complex flight possible with push the button. In doing do so it is a matter of hours to train a Part 107 certified individual, such as a wind technician or a security guard or a power lineman to operate drones safely and also operate them consistently. Meaning, that regardless of who operates the drone, the outcome, the sensor data is highly uniform. By doing that on the front end, not only do we allow anyone to be able to capture the information, we also enable that data to be processed automatically using machine learning. By putting those two pieces together, there is an end-to-end workflow that is literally push button easy, fully automated that generates a large volume of data which is in turn actionable intelligence for an organization.

When and how did Airtonomy start?
 
I quit my day job in 2018 to begin building this company and we’ve been going strong every since. We were fortunate enough to be the first technology startup funded by Microsoft’s TechSpark program. I was fortunate enough to meet their leadership team and not only was their support instrumental but it gave me inspiration to keep going after leaving my day job and seeing this reality come true.

Where did the idea for your startup come from?
 
My co-founder and I all worked at the University of North Dakota in various capacities. One co-founder was a faculty member in computer science, another co-founder was chair of the aviation department and I was the University’s Chief Information Officer and oversaw research computing. The three of us have various skill-sets with a common focus and we worked together on a prior project so this was natural for us to go down this pathway. We were awarded a grant called The UAS Data Lifecycle as part of the University of North Dakota regional data hub which conceptually morphed into what Airtonomy is today.

Who is your ideal customer?
 
We work predominately with utilities, starting with publicly traded and also working with cooperatives for the more rural areas. We also work with energy companies and then we have some technology partners that have assisted us, such as Microsoft and Excel Energy, a regional energy company that we’ve worked with. Finding those types of partners, like National Grid would be amazing.

What can we expect from your company in the near future?
 
We believe there is a point at which drones and autonomous vehicles can really take off and scale, but we also believe the industry hasn’t found that point yet. We feel like if we haven’t found that point yet, we’ve found something very close to that, where the next contracts we’ll be signing are to take our methodology that is in practice with one application such as wind turbine inspections or oil tank inspections, customers who have seen the process and scalability, repeatability, adaptability, will look to expand that across their enterprise. Meaning there is a common software framework for all autonomous vehicle operations. What would be considered success is to see large energy and utility companies that have adopted Airtonomy moving across their enterprise and are connecting various drone hardware, sensor hardware and various analysis routines for literally any purpose that you can imagine.

Why are you excited about GENIUS NY?
 
We are very proud of where we are from and what we’ve accomplished, but we also realize that there is a next step. We feel like GENIUS NY and this area constitutes that next step to provide great access to capital, greater access to people, not only job candidates but expertise that can help us become a better company and serve our customers better. If we want to operate on the national and international stage, this is the type of next step we need.

What are you most looking forward to while staying in Syracuse?
 
We look forward to branching out into the community. We have a trip planned to the New York UAS Test Site which we are looking forward to and learning more about the role of Central New York in unmanned aircraft systems.
 
What will you do with the one million grand prize?
 
The easiest answer to that is to focus on our growth and our customers and acquiring talent. We are at a point that for us to grow, we have to add employees, predominantly computer scientist, software developers and roboticist.
 
Check out Aironomy’s career page for job opportunities.

Last month the new GENIUS NY companies had the opportunity to tour and speak with some of CNY’s top founders. Teams visited Jeff Rubin at Sidearm Sports, Jeff Knauss at Digital Hyve, Devin Daly at Spincar and Raymond Moore at TCG Player. These companies reflect the startup growth Syracuse has been seeing over the past few years and is proof that founders can build a successful startup in Syracuse instead of a popular tech hub like the Silicon Valley. The founders talked about success in the area with top talent coming from Syracuse University, Cornell and Clarkson, investment with now two local VC firms, as well as community resources and support.

Our tour wouldn’t be complete without meeting with Jeff Knauss, founder of Digital Hyve where we learned how him and Jacob Tanner grew their business in Downtown Syracuse to a second location in Rochester NY. We're very lucky to have these two entrepreneurial ambassadors in our city.
Did you know the two co-founders met at a Tech Garden networking event?

Company HQ: Headquartered in Hamburg, Germany R&D and Production in Hungary, Air Fleet Training in London, Development office in Spain
Team Size: 27
Focus: A tech ori­en­tat­ed aviation company
Website: airialrobotics.com

Tell us about your company?
We have developed an aircraft that is safer and performs better than existing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) by merging a helicopter with a gyrocopter. What this does is allow the aircraft to act like a helicopter at low speeds, when it goes to gyrocopter mode, the aircraft flies like a fixed wing airplane so it can move fast and it can go for long distance. Our main rotor diameter is 2.6 meters (8.5ft). The version that is ready to go to market now has a maximum takeoff weight of 2kg (4.4lbs).

What are your drones used for?
We are addressing very specifically 3 use cases:

1. Use case number one is agriculture where you use a special version of the drone for spraying and seeding.
2. The second vertical we are looking at is transportation of goods which includes heavy lift capacity that can also be used at high altitude and medical transportation such as drugs and samples from hospitals.
3. The third is surveillance where we focus mainly on mapping, search and rescue and disaster response. The benefit is that we can carry much heavier sensors than an average drone can do today.

Who is your ideal customer?
Our ideal customers are private companies, government agencies such as police, firefighters, military, medical. Ideally our customer is someone flying drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) long distance over highly populated areas.

Where did the idea for your Startup come from?
Our CTO is an aviation nerd. He was involved in multi-copters and also fixed wing vertical takeoff and landing. When he analyzed (current drones in the market) what he was asked to do, he realized it was not the safest or the best way to design the drone. He wanted to build the safest drone that can carry the biggest amount of payload. On November 7, 2017 is when he started on the basic development of our technology.

What can we expect from Airial Robotics in the near future?
We plan to develop a truly international global business, with manufacturing in Europe and the United States. We will be able to scale the expansion of logistics services with our transportation drone and make a big impact within the agriculture sector. Currently, our agricultural drone has 25kg (55.1lbs) takeoff weight (the first of its kind). We are planning on building a 100 – 200kg (220.4 - 440.9lbs) drone. A 200kg (440.9lbs) drone can carry more than 100kg (220.4lbs) of liquid so we can spray large areas very efficiently.

It’s our goal to grow this company to 150 employees by 2024 and expand our product range to a drone from 4kg (8.8lbs) takeoff weight which is agile and can be used for police and response forces all the way up to 600kg (1,322.7lbs) which will be a two seated air taxi.

Why are you excited about GENIUS NY?
When we see what’s happening here, we have never seen anything like it in the world. The infrastructure, the people behind it all, the amount of support that is given to us, the effort to make us feel good and successful is just an amazing experience.

With GENIUS NY on our side, we feel we are getting accelerated and we feel with this infrastructure and people together, we can make this successful. And it’s motivating. Our whole team in Europe waits every week on my report in anticipation of what’s new and what we are doing.

What are you most looking forward to while staying in Syracuse?
We want to understand what makes this area special. We’ve never been to Central NY. It’s an exciting cultural site we want to explore. Long term, we would like to become members of the community and build friendships and partnerships.

What will you do with the $1 Million grand prize?
Very simple, invest it into staff. Invest it into development projects and generate a solid U.S. business. A business that is sustainable, growing and also giving back to the community that has invested into us.

GENIUS NY Finals Night will include all five finalists pitching for the grand prize of $1M. Stay tuned for more information coming soon!

Five Teams from Around World to Receive a Total of $3 Million in Investments and Participate in Year-Long Accelerator in CNY
 
Syracuse – GENIUS NY, a business accelerator program at CenterState CEO’s Tech Garden, today announced the five finalists companies selected for its fifth round. These startup unmanned systems and robotics companies will participate in the year-long program and will compete for a total of $3 million in direct investment, with one grand prize of up to $1 million and four $500,000 awards. The companies were selected from a pool of more than 600 submissions. Finalists include teams with international and New York state representation.
 
The five companies will move into The Tech Garden, in Syracuse, this month and will begin to refine work on their business cases and pitch before Pitch Finals which will be held on October 20 at the Marriott Syracuse Downtown. 
 
“We look forward to welcoming these teams from around the world to our community so we can support their growth and integrate them into the thriving ecosystem we have developed for the unmanned systems industry,’ said Kara Jones, director of GENIUS NY. “Over the next year, they will receive targeted business development resources and mentoring, that coupled with the state’s high-value investment will ensure their success. It has been incredibly rewarding to see the growth of the teams from previous rounds of the competition and I know this new cohort will join with them to further establish The Tech Garden as the leading place to grow your UAS company.” 
 
The five finalists selected for GENIUS NY 5 are:
 
Airial Robotics (Hamburg, Germany): Airial Robotics develops commercial UAVs for surveillance, logistics and agriculture modeled after gyrocopter/helicopter hybrid that are challenging industry performance limits for safety, payload, range and speed.
 
Airtonomy (Grand Forks, ND): Airtonomy's push-button software automates uniform collection, packaging and analysis of data acquired by autonomous vehicles and sensors, specifically targeting critical energy infrastructure. Airtonomy's rules-based drone data management methodology increases customer return on investment.
 
CarScanner (Krakow, Poland): CarScanner develops a used car inspection robot that autonomously navigates around a car and automatically detects scratches, dents, repainted body surfaces, and other damages with structured light, thermography and machine learning algorithms.
 
Circle Optics (Rochester, NY): Circle Optics develops high-resolution, wide field-of-view imaging systems that enable real-time capture without the time and expense of post-processing required by other multicamera systems. Paired to a UAS this technology can enable immersive telepresence, better autonomy and a platform to run edge applications such as self-localization, object recognition/tracking, as well as volumetric data capture.
 
WindShape (Geneva, Switzerland): WindShape develops indoor weather simulation technology to test and certify drones under controllable and repeatable flight conditions to enable autonomous and scalable drone applications.
 
The year-long competition is the largest business accelerator competition for the UAS industry in the world. Recent announcements by GENIUS NY teams demonstrate the quality of the program, which is funded by Empire State Development. Teams from GENIUS NY continue to hit growth milestones and have attracted outside investments, made connections and established partnerships with local businesses, and have made hires or currently have openings.
 
“These companies were selected from the most competitive pool of applications we have ever seen,” said Jeff Fuchsberg, vice president of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at CenterState CEO. “This year’s applicant pool and high-growth finalists highlight the program’s ability to drive success and impact the rapid growth of participating teams. As round five teams join the innovation ecosystem we have created at The Tech Garden, they too will benefit from a network of resources we’ve established to support startup companies.”  
 
“The success of this program can be seen in the companies that participated in rounds one through four and continue to grow and create jobs in our community,” said Rob Simpson, president of CenterState CEO. “Their continued success supports regional efforts to be a global leader in the unmanned systems industry.”  
 
Since 2017, GENIUS NY has invested $12 million in 22 companies from around the world and brought them to Central New York to participate in the yearlong in-residence accelerator where they receive assistance with product development, business development, as well as networking opportunities with investors and business leaders. Since 2017, GENIUS NY companies have raised more than $40 million in follow-on funding and have created over 50 jobs in New York.
 
Beyond the grand prize investments, participants benefit from access to some of the region's premier startup programming, including business planning, industry specific mentorship, and access to vetted service providers offering startup friendly terms. Participants are also integrated into the larger regional effort to grow unmanned aerial systems in Central New York and the Mohawk Valley, and will have access to world-leading infrastructure and testing assets. Participants also have opportunities to connect with investors for follow on funding.
 
The advancement of the GENIUS NY program builds on the progress of CNY Rising, the region’s award-winning strategic plan to generate robust economic growth and community development.
 
Throughout the program, teams will engage with community leaders, mentors, and advisors from leading companies in Central New York while also participating in tourism activities. The goal is to encourage all participants to put down roots and stay in the region following the conclusion of the program.
 
To learn more about GENIUS NY visit www.geniusny.com.