Launched in 2014 out of Fort Worth’s AllianceTexas development, Booster has provided delivery of traditional and alternative fuels to fleets, corporate campuses, and retail properties.

The $125M funding round included a longtime Booster backer—Dallas-based venture capital firm Perot Jain.

The mobile fuel delivery startup announced landing a $125 million Series D funding round that included a longtime local backer of the company—Dallas-based venture capital firm Perot Jain.

“Since our founding seven years ago, Booster has been singularly focused on reinventing that supply chain with solutions built on data, mobility and the digital-first experience that customers want,” said Frank Mycroft, founder and CEO at Booster, in a statement.

Pushing for renewable and alternative fuels

Launched in 2014 out of Fort Worth’s AllianceTexas development, which is home to a number of tech and logistics companies, Booster has since expanded its service area to include 150 cities, providing fuel delivery of traditional and alternative fuels to fleets, corporate campuses, and retail properties.

While it still retains employees and operations in the region, Booster moved its headquarters to San Mateo, Calif. a few years after it was formed. North Texas is home to about 40 Booster employees, including Chief Operating Officer Amy O’Neil, a spokesperson for Booster told Dallas Innovates. It has a fuel yard in Dallas that services more than 500 vehicles per day and also serves as the company’s office for its operations team.

Along with its fuel delivery services, Booster also has a data and analytics platform that provides customers with metrics and insights.

Expanding network, fuel portfolio, and mobile EV charging

With the new funding, which brings its total to at least $213.5 million, Booster said it plans to expand its delivery network, in addition to expanding its portfolio of fuel types. Prompted by customer demand, the company said it is promoting the switch to renewable and alternative fuels, as well as expanding a pilot last year to provide mobile on-demand electric vehicle charging.

“The supply chain powering transportation is overly reliant on costly fixed infrastructure,” Mycroft said. “Given the extraordinary growth of the ‘delivery-of-everything’ economy, customers need reliable solutions that enable them to become more carbon-efficient today without compromising on cost or flexibility.”

Booster sees demand rising

The move comes as Booster said it has seen first quarter revenue jump by 125% year-over-year, aided by large e-commerce and delivery clients like Amazon, UPS, and Imperfect Foods. Reuters also notes that fuel demand is nearing its pre-pandemic levels globally, with the S&P 500 Energy Index up 50% since the beginning of the year.

In March, Booster’s former Dallas-based Co-founder and President Tyler Raugh left the company to take a position as head of business development and strategic sales at AtoB, a San Francisco-based, transportation-focused payment infrastructure, according to his LinkedIn.

Booster’s Series D was led by Rose Park Advisors and joined by more than a dozen others, including Mitsubishi Corporation, Thayer Ventures, and Renewable Energy Group.

“Booster’s solution helps fleets to navigate alternative powertrain options both today and in the future, when performance will increasingly be evaluated on measures of environmental and sustainability impact,” said Matt Christensen, managing partner at Rose Park Advisors, in a statement.

Kodiak Robotics and AllianceTexas are teaming up to bring the future of transportation to North Texas.

You may not have known it when you drove by an automated truck here in North Texas, and that is precisely the point. With technology honed and perfected at transportation mega-hub AllianceTexas, several automated vehicle companies are operating on North Texas roads. And it is only the beginning.

Part of the supply chain chokepoint is the 80,000 shortage of long haul truck drivers. That deficit is expected to balloon to 160,000 by 2028. AllianceTexas’ mobility innovation zone has played a vital role in developing several companies’ automated technology. Alliance’s intermodal port allows for smooth and automated interaction between truck, train, and air freight, providing the infrastructure and space necessary to make automated vehicles a reality here in North Texas.

“We said we wanted to go and start trying to commercialize something to give these companies a way to come and scale these technologies knowing that there are a lot of folks in this page going to take a lot of coordination,” says Russell Laughlin, executive vice president at Hillwood. He leads infrastructure planning at the 27,000-acre master-planned community AllianceTexas. “We believe that supply chain and logistics will lead the adoption of autonomy and mobility.”

Kodiak Robotics is one company that has benefitted from that relationship. The company’s engineering headquarters are based in California, but their operational headquarters are here in North Texas, where the nearly two dozen trucks have been delivering goods for paying customers since 2019. Kodiak was founded by Don Burnette, who cut his automated vehicle teeth as one of the original software engineers working on Google’s driverless car before he saw an opportunity to move into the trucking space.

Kodiak’s North Texas trucks aren’t driverless–yet. Right now, there is a safety driver who drives the vehicle to and from the highway when the system takes over for the long haul miles. It isn’t too different from how a pilot in a commercial airline will switch to autopilot once the plane has reached cruising altitude. “You probably have seen one of our trucks on the road, and you probably didn’t give it much thought because they drive pretty normal,” says Daniel Goff, head of external affairs at Kodiak. “They stay in the right lane; they don’t speed, weave in and out of traffic, and don’t stop and start suddenly.” Kodiak has never received a complaint from another driver via the Texas Department of Transportation.

The company’s trucks operate between Dallas, Houston, Austin, Oklahoma City, and San Antonio and have a pilot to Atlanta starting soon. Kodiak is focusing on long-haul trips rather than first- and last-mile for a few reasons. First, the technology isn’t quite where it needs to be to deal with more difficult surface streets. Secondly, the labor shortage and with supply chain issues means that companies have more demand for long-haul work than trips within the region. “By focusing our technology on those long haul miles, we can create sustainable first and last-mile jobs that allow people to be home not missing their families for days and days at a time,” Goff says.

Aurora Innovation is also in the autonomous vehicle space, and their operations focus on Texas as well. They have partnered with clients like FedEx and Uber freight to deliver goods with manned autonomous vehicles made by Peterbilt between Houston and Palmer, Texas.

Aurora was founded in 2017 by Sterling Anderson, Drew Bagnell and Chris Urmson, who was also part of the Google self-driving car. The company works with vehicle manufacturers and installs its hardware and software on the vehicles before launching them on the roads.

Texas is a hub for many of these companies because of its growing population and business-friendly regulatory environment. House Bill 2205 passed unanimously in 2017 and implemented safety standards for automated vehicles in the state. The bill aligned standards with the national highway safety regulations but prevented local municipalities from creating their own criteria for autonomous vehicles.

The bill says that automated trucking companies have to follow all the same rules that regular trucking companies do, including insurance for the company and class-C licenses, and drive-time limits for safety drivers. Being treated just like other companies is precisely what the Kodiaks and Auroras of the world want. In addition to the regulatory openness, Kodiak has benefitted from a desire to bring innovative companies from private and public interests to the region.

“We have had a lot of people happy to have us, from TxDOT to the North Central Texas Council of Governments and private sector partners like Alliance,” Goff says. “They are people who are open to the technology and excited to have companies like Kodiak in the area.”

Texas’ geography is also friendly to the technology. It gets a bit of all seasons, but overall the weather doesn’t pose many challenges to autonomous vehicles. “Texas has long stretches of highway that are conducive to this technology,” says Jeremiah Kuntz, who is the government relations manager at Aurora. “There is also a large amount of freight that moves in and through this state, so it makes a lot of sense to locate in Texas because it fits the business model.”

Goff says the next couple of years could see Kodiak’s transition from trucks with safety drivers to completely driverless vehicles, but it is already happening elsewhere. Automated trucking company TuSimple has been piloting driverless vehicles on the 113 highway miles between Tucson and Phoenix in Arizona. It will soon be partnering with Union Pacific to move freight along that route.

Kodiak is looking to expand its fleet to 25 by the end of the year to increase its ability to test the vehicles and serve more clients. There are still some hurdles to overcome, such as the rule that says if a semi-truck is broken down on the side of the road, the driver has to place cones or flares behind the truck to alert other drivers. That requirement might be tricky for driverless vehicles, but companies are working with transportation and law enforcement departments to find a solution.

Aurora is looking to launch a Texas route for commercial partners at the end of next year, and have secured non-binding reservations through 2025. In May, Aurora partnered with Covenant, a logistics company that is looking to use driverless technology to augment its long-haul trucking business.

Operators in the space are confident about the safety and efficacy of the technology. They run countless scenarios and prove the technology can perform better than humans. By the time a vehicle is driverless, it has been through much more than the 15-minute driver test that teenagers have to pass. “We’re talking about a vehicle that, by the time it’s driverless, will be the most tested, proven out, carefully analyzed driver in history.”

The future of the U.S. supply chain for electric vehicles, drones and wind turbines could run through Fort Worth. Las Vegas-based MP Materials held a ground breaking for a new site in AllianceTexas, where the company will manufacture magnets. 

“Rare earth magnets are really what will power motion,” said Chairman James Litinsky.  

MP Materials runs the Mountain Pass rare earth materials mine in California, one of the largest in the world.

Right now, most of the mining for rare earth materials and 92% of global magnet production comes from China. The neodymium iron boron, or NdFeB magnets, are the strongest in the world and there isn’t a good substitute. 

“These industries of the future are where our jobs and GDP are going to come from, so we need to make sure that we have that full supply chain here,” said Litinsky.

“Right now, in places like China and Russia, they’re scared because of what you’re doing,” Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker said during the event.

Instead of just mining the materials, MP will be able to separate them out and produce 1,000 tonnes of magnets per year, just 1% of the world’s production, but still enough to power half a million electric vehicle motors. The company also touted its partnership to supply GM with magnets during the event Thursday. 

“We must have energy independence with US-Made renewable. If not, we’re going to put our whole nation at risk,” said Ross Perot Jr, the chairman of the Perot Group. 

“Most people would’ve told us, ‘You’re crazy. You can’t do this. You’re never going to be able to compete against China’,” Litinsky said. “Fast-forward, here we are.”

The facility off Independence Parkway will bring 150 jobs and come online in late 2023. With the demand for magnets possibly tripling by 2035, the hope is start moving more production to the U.S. 

“I think the lesson from our analogy is that America can compete,” Litinsky said. “I believe this industry is going to be enormous. This is really the beginning.”

WATCH: https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/fort-worth-mining-company-magnet-us-supply-chain/287-c87ca0ce-2a00-4a54-9db7-60ba50319d52

Autonomous and connected vehicle companies operating in the AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone will benefit from knowing they will have secure and constant wireless 4G and 5G connectivity for their planning and operations through Ericsson Routes. 

Ericsson Routes is like a Waze for wireless cellular connectivity, providing connectivity predictions so that users can be sure they will have a consistent and reliable connection throughout the whole journey and when planning routes for autonomous vehicles. Ericsson Routes is an incubation unit within Ericsson to broaden services to the automotive industry.

Hillwood, one of the leading industrial and commercial real estate developers in the U.S., and Ericsson, a global leader in telecommunications and technology partner to automakers, have a shared vision of a future where connected mobility will make transportation safer and more sustainable.

The AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone (MIZ) is an unparalleled ecosystem that allows mobility visionaries full access to essential resources and partnerships to test, scale and commercialize the latest technologies. In the less than three years since the launch of the MIZ, it has quickly become one of the premier global destinations for pioneers advancing next-generation supply chain technologies, including Wing, Bell, TuSimple, Gatik, and many more. 

“Partnering with Ericsson Routes and their technology leadership gives our customers world-class and cutting-edge services that will advance the mobility industry,” says Russell Laughlin, Executive Vice President of Hillwood. “This unique technology offers mobility leaders an opportunity to be at the forefront of ensuring their products have the connectivity they need to operate now and well into the future.”

“Ericsson believes that wireless cellular connectivity is essential to mobility. Companies need to know and trust that connectivity will be seamless before sending an autonomous vehicle onto the road to deliver groceries or a drone to inspect a power line. Ericsson Routes provides this insurance, and we’re excited to see it grow at the AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone,” says Daniel Alexus, Head of Ericsson ONE.

Earlier this year, Ericsson Routes launched in San Francisco, Calif., providing a single integration point and a consistent prediction engine for autonomous vehicles across all their wireless service providers. The service predicts secure connectivity along a path from point A to point B with its uplink blind spot detector. By collecting and measuring connectivity data insights, Ericsson Routes’ planning capabilities also help fleet managers address connectivity questions as new deployment areas are considered. 

Ericsson Routes has now expanded its service to the MIZ, making it available to the current and future leading mobility companies operating there. In addition, in partnership with Hillwood, Ericsson Routes will test and expand support for drone connectivity later this year. 

For more information about the AllianceTexasMIZ, please go here.

If you’re a player in the autonomous or connected vehicle space or a drone company interested in trying out Ericsson Routes, please find more information here.  

Ericsson is a technology partner to automakers, connectivity providers, and hyperscalers alike – moving the automotive ecosystem forward in multiple collaborative efforts, including managing connectivity and digital services. Ericsson Routes is an Ericsson ONE incubated project. Ericsson ONE is Ericsson’s accelerator for internal growth businesses. Read more about it here.

With conversation exploding around bottlenecks in supply chain and logistics, new trends are emerging on how to problem solve and scale rapidly, and the team at the AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone (MIZ) has consistently been at the helm of facilitating impactful conversations and driving strategic partnerships with key players in the public and private sectors to push innovation in surface and air mobility to new heights.

During the inaugural Forward Fort Worth summit held in Fort Worth in early March 2022, the Hillwood team hosted a combination of mobility visionaries, regulatory officials, and leaders in the public and private sectors to collaborate and network on a common goal – the commercialization of mobility technology across the supply chain. Discussion abounded between key players in the industry on how we can make transportation and mobility safer and more efficient, and bring the world one step closer to autonomy on the ground and in the air.

An overarching obstacle plaguing this industry is a labor shortage. It is no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has placed significant pressure on the supply chain and, subsequently, the labor force participation rate. Logistics transportation companies face obstacles with bottlenecks and workforce shortages – and the industry is currently 100,000 drivers short. Optimizing freight operations to include automation and shared ecosystems will help solve this, and mobility visionaries see automation and strategic partnerships as the clear answer. Automation will help relieve the pressure of finding drivers and balance the extreme seasonality of onboarding labor. Partnerships between the public and private sectors are critical, and human connection is key to solving these problems. The goal is workforce enablement, not elimination. And the AllianceTexas MIZ is the community and ecosystem with the right resources and infrastructure to advance partnerships and policy in the right direction.

At the core, electrification and automation are the future of supply chain innovation if the industry plans to scale at the speed experts predict and need. Electric charging will pave the way to full autonomy, with automation key to keeping people in the equation for more detailed and complex tasks. However, digital integration will present a major challenge. With so much fragmented data, synergistic systems will be essential. This technology needs to be deployed in high-density areas and rural areas equally to disperse jobs and facilitate cross-country growth that advanced surface technology will create. Solving these problems is vital to getting us to true automation across the supply chain.

While experts continue to work together to solve the problems the industry currently faces, it is equally important to look toward the next generation and the critical role that connectivity, rapid adoption of technology, and talent recruitment will play in this space. The philosophy with new technology is to adopt early or get left behind. It’s that simple. Visionary leaders concur that the most important facet of technology to consider is connectivity, and systems need to talk to each other to achieve interoperability. Connectivity can mean a few different things for automation, but it is undoubtedly the lynchpin for all digital technology and infrastructure. The next generation of mobility technologies will rely heavily on robots and automation to help execute everyday tasks and subsequently open their workday to handle high-level, important decisions. The team at the AllianceTexas MIZ is working to facilitate faster technology adoption to ensure swift transition into the commercialization of next-generation mobility solutions. A shift in thinking is in order – it’s not the ROI earned if we do adopt, but the ROI lost if we fall behind the curve.

Hillwood’s AllianceTexas MIZ team is leading the charge in North Texas. Their vision to combine public-private partnerships, world-class infrastructure, and real estate to test and commercialize cutting-edge technology is pushing companies to scale quickly and efficiently to support the future of surface and air mobility.

This article was originally published in the Austin Business Journal.

Wing also worked with Hillwood, a real estate developer, to prepare a separate drone delivery facility within Frisco Station, an urban, mixed-use development located in Frisco. Hillwood was an attractive partner because of its AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone, which has a dedicated industrial airport.

Wing, the drone subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL), began drone delivery services in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, on Thursday. The company shared the news on its website.

Recently elevated CTO turned CEO Adam Woodworth said the launch would make Wing’s services the first commercial drone delivery service in a major U.S. metropolitan area. With Walgreens as the launch partner, select customers who live in eligible homes in the City of Frisco and Town of Little Elm will be able to order health and wellness products and have them delivered by drones to their homes.

The company plans to add more partners: Blue Bell Creameries for ice-cream delivery, easyvet, a prescription service for pet medication, and Texas Health, which provides first-aid kits.

“This is an important milestone for Wing and drone delivery in the U.S. It would not have been possible without the support of the public officials and the citizens of Frisco and Little Elm citizens, and our merchant partners,” Woodworth said.

Wing also worked with Hillwood, a real estate developer, to prepare a separate drone delivery facility within Frisco Station, an urban, mixed-use development located in Frisco. Hillwood was an attractive partner because of its AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone, which has a dedicated industrial airport.

How the Delivery Works

In an October 2021 press release, the company outlined how its new drone model would serve densely populated metropolitan areas. 

“The aircraft will arrive in small containers that serve as tiny hangars, allowing each store to quickly and easily deploy a small, dedicated fleet from its parking lot, on its roof, or in small spaces adjacent to the building.” 

Walgreens team members will load the packages onto the drone and Wing will oversee the delivery.

History of Success

Wing already has a history of successful drone delivery operations. In January 2019, the company began delivering takeout food in Australia. It then launched in Helsinki, Finland, before starting operations in Virginia in the U.S. The launch in Texas is its fifth integration of delivery drones into local airspace. In 2021, the company completed more than 100,000 deliveries in Australia. In 2022, it registered its busiest week so far when it delivered 1,000-plus packages in a single day or once every 25 seconds.

In total, Wing has completed more than 200,000 commercial deliveries across the globe.

The Aircraft

Wing’s drone is designed as a hybrid, using both fixed-wing and hover propellers to transition between operating like an airplane and a helicopter. It flies at a speed of 65 mph or approximately 56 knots. According to its website, its record order-to-delivery time is just under 2 minutes and 50 seconds. The payload must weigh less than 2.6 pounds, and it can fly a roundtrip distance of up to 12 miles. While the drones are autonomous, remote pilots monitor the aircraft and can take over should something go wrong.

‘X Development’ 

Wing is one of the few successful ventures out of Alphabet’s research and development innovation subsidiary known as X Development or The Moonshot Factory. The goal of the subsidiary is to find and develop products and services as profitable as Google, the company’s ubiquitous search engine. Another X Development venture that has gained traction is Waymo, the driverless car company, coincidentally founded by Sebastian Thrun, who is now CEO of Kittyhawk, another prominent electric aircraft startup.

The Mobility Innovation Zone at AllianceTexas is playing a growing role in the region with autonomous trucking.

Dallas-Fort Worth is no stranger to 18-wheelers as a key junction for moving freight around the state and beyond. Now the region is getting more from what’s seen as at least part of the future of logistics: autonomous trucking.

While headquarters for these driverless machines hail from other states, it’s North Texas that’s playing a crucial role in helping refine and improve technology for the trucks. Locals may see people still in cabins amid the testing as the vehicles assist in shipping.

That’s not to say the Dallas area is the only place. But cities such as Palmer and Coppell — along with AllianceTexas — are seeing investments in sites for the vehicle operations. There are also more employees getting hired as the market gets more attention.

“The trucking industry wants this,” Richard Bishop, an automated vehicles industry analyst, said in an interview. “There are enough key large trucking fleets that have partnered up with these technology companies. I see nothing standing in the way of a lot of freight on the interstate highways now — (that) could be carried in driverless mode.”

Dallas is benefitting from its longstanding role in shipping and trucking, stretching back to well before the recent discussions involving autonomous. It also is getting help from the networks around Texas and the state’s key legislation that enabled testing of autonomous trucking, unlike some. There’s also the good weather, which is helpful when piloting new driving tech, and access to talent.

It’s all happening amid growing demand for deliveries to people’s front doors, spurred by the effects of COVID-19. There is a strain on logistics, and struggles with securing workers aren’t helping.

‘Efficient to deploy’

Texas is an essential shipping state already. Interstate inbound freight shipments by value put it at No. 1 in the U.S., according to information provided by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics last year tied to 2017 data.

There are some big publicly traded names in autonomous trucking that have set up shop in DFW. That includes Waymo Via, part of the company that includes Silicon Valley’s Google, along with Pittsburgh-based Aurora and San Diego’s TuSimple.

There are others, including a Cambridge, Mass., company called ISEE, according to co-founder and CEO, Yibiao Zhao, in an emailed response to questions from the Dallas Business Journal. It’s planning to ramp up hiring as it provides autonomous logistics trucks and supports the supply chain.

Yet another move came recently when California-based Embark announced a strategic partnership with Alterra Property Group, a real estate investment company, to identify and launch transfer point sites – and Dallas is one of the key markets it’s planning to operate in, according to a spokesperson.

Embark is running autonomous trucks from its operations centers and transfer points in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Houston.

“Dallas is a major freight hub that is home to a large amount of freight traffic and is geographically well-positioned for autonomous long-haul routes,” the spokesperson said in an email. “It is at a location that makes it efficient to deploy autonomous freight at scale.”

Waymo has put its roots down in Lancaster and expects to bring hundreds of jobs to work out of that facility, in collaboration with vendors and partners, a spokesperson said. These will be roles across our operations team — most of which are specifically for the autonomous trucks, such as AV fleet dispatchers, AV fleet technicians and AV software operators along with CDL commercial driver’s license) autonomous specialists.

“It will be our primary operations center in Texas designed for commercial use with our carrier partners,” the spokesperson said in an emailed response to questions, noting one partner is C.H. Robinson. “The hub will not only bolster our operations in Texas, but it will also support long haul routes across the Southwest and connect with our Phoenix operations center.”

With Aurora, the team in the Dallas area was recently at about 70 and growing quickly. It has locations in Palmer and Coppell. In Texas, some of the roles include autonomous operations specialists, service engineers, plus hardware and software engineers, among other roles. Additional terminals in Texas are slated for this year.

It’s hauling freight for customers today from its terminal — and that makes the area critical, as it works toward launching a commercial product.

“Texas, and Dallas by extension, is an important testing ground for us,” the spokesperson said. “We are proud and excited to develop, test, and deploy our autonomous trucking product” in the state.”

‘Internationally recognized’

Kodiak Robotics, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., has planted its flag in the Dallas area with a site that covers more than 75,000 square feet in Lancaster. It had about 30 folks there recently and is hiring.

“Within trucking, I think the supply chain crisis has really shone a light on the need for this technology,” said Daniel Goff, head of external affairs at Kodiak.

The company, which is hardly a new player to the Dallas area with autonomous trucking, is coming off an announcement for a $125 million funding effort that was unveiled in November. Kodiak has been building and operating self-driving trucks designed to operate on highway routes.

“We’re growing the team,” Goff said. “We’re growing the fleet.”

A newer name is Gatik, which has offices in California. The company pushed into Texas in August – and to support that expansion in the state, partnered with the AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone, according to Richard Steiner, head of policy and communications. Its trucks are smaller than big semis, providing help with short-haul logistics.

It recently hired about 20 new roles in the state and anticipates creating over 500 new jobs by 2025, including operational, technical, vehicle maintenance and business roles.

“Dallas-Fort Worth is internationally recognized as one of the world’s leading logistics centers in terms of innovation, sophisticated infrastructure and a highly-skilled workforce,” Steiner said. “Combined with a dense customer base, a progressive and well-structured regulatory environment, and an ideal climate, bringing the advantages of our autonomous middle mile solution to customers in the Texas ecosystem was a very natural step for us.”

AllianceTexas

The Mobility Innovation Zone at AllianceTexas is playing a growing role in the region with autonomous trucking.

TuSimple, which is based in California, has set up shop at the site – and Hillwood, the real estate developer, earlier this year announced a collaboration to integrate the autonomous trucking company’s infrastructure specifications into industrial and commercial properties.

It’s an agreement to help “us design our next generation of warehouse logistics facilities,” said Russell Laughlin, executive vice president of Hillwood, in an interview. There are questions around how some of the facilities should be set up and operated to interact with autonomous efforts, including trucking and technology.

Companies at AllianceTexas are “evaluating autonomy,” he said.

“We really think Dallas-Fort Worth has the opportunity to lead in the commercialized adoption of this autonomy in the supply chain,” Laughlin said as he talked about how autonomous trucking can be followed by related efforts. “It’s really, really big from our perspective and important.”

It’s in a good place with AllianceTexas, with more than 550 companies.

Already, there’s plenty of activity around shipping with AllianceTexas. That includes a BNSF intermodal facility, among other players in the market.

There is a lot “of opportunity,” Laughlin said.

ISEE

ISEE opened an office in the Dallas area in 2020, and one of its key customers, a Fortune 100 consumer-packaged-goods company, has a warehouse facility in DFW. Its offerings are used at logistics yards where shipments are handled at warehouses and fulfillment centers as trucks pick up and drop off goods.  

The company provides proprietary technology that includes both software and hardware – and integrates with the yard management system, along with equipment.

“Customers can automate their existing yards without disruption while reducing costs through improved cycle times,” Zhao said.

The company is growing in the DFW area.

“Dallas-Fort Worth is a leading industrial market and given the increased demand for warehouse and distribution space due to the pandemic, the region’s job growth, construction, and affordability have only made it more attractive,” Zhao said.

Flight test center in Dallas-Fort Worth Mobility Innovation Zone (MIZ) can add value, by providing a large-scale test and development environment

 For now, flight testing of eVTOL aircraft and other new aviation technologies is largely being conducted in out-of-the-way locations, but those intended for urban operations will need to prove themselves in something closer to a real-world environment before fully certified, commercial operations can begin and there is community acceptance. This is where real estate developer Hillwood believes its flight test center in its Dallas-Fort Worth Mobility Innovation Zone (MIZ) can add value, by providing a large-scale test and development environment. Unlike anywhere else in the nation, the MIZ provides partner organizations and the scale, infrastructure, and environment for the commercialization of emerging technologies in air and surface mobility.

 Two years ago, Hillwood decided to seek a footprint in advanced air mobility as it reviewed its strategic objectives. “Our goal is to help advance mobility innovation by offering real estate to visionaries like aircraft manufacturers and operators to conduct flight testing at our AllianceTexas Flight Test Center on the north side of Fort Worth Alliance Airport,” Christopher Ash, senior vice president for aviation business development, told FutureFlight. “You can test uncrewed and eVTOL platforms in the desert, but that’s not where they will operate. They need to be integrated into complex airspace, and we have the perfect environment for testing, scaling, and ultimately commercializing these products.”

 Last year, drone delivery pioneer Wing started operating flights in communities around Fort Worth Alliance Airport, such as Little Elm and Frisco. With the FAA’s blessing, its uncrewed aircraft are able to deliver items such as prescription medications to homes.

 Hillwood’s connection with aviation has deep roots. Back in 1982, company founder Ross Perot, Jr., flew around the world in a Bell 206L-1 Long Ranger helicopter. The rotorcraft group, Bell, is based close by and it operates in the AAM sector; for example, it is developing the Autonomous Pod Transport (APT) vehicle, which it has been flight testing in the MIZ alongside autonomous trucking and freight logistics companies.

 Bell’s APT-70 vehicle has also conducted test operations in the nearby Pecan Square residential development that is part of Hillwood’s AllianceTexas development. Hillwood has been pleasantly surprised by the favorable response to these flights by local residents.

 According to Ash, local and state officials in north Texas are positively inclined towards new aviation ventures and have displayed a willingness to embrace autonomous flight operations. More than 500 companies are based at AllianceTexas and many of these are in the logistics business with potential synergies with uncrewed aircraft operations.

 When Uber was planning its now-abandoned Elevate eVTOL flight booking platform, the ride-hailing group identified the wider Dallas-Fort Worth area as a likely early adopter. Ash shares that assessment, pointing to the benefits that urban air mobility services could bring to communities across the region.

 “There are clearly benefits, including for outlying areas, and vertiports [for eVTOL flights] will become more common here as people become more comfortable and trusting of the technology,” he said. “Safety is top of mind for us and our partners.”

 Last month, the MIZ was recognized as the Top Transportation Innovator by local media group D CEO and Dallas Innovates.

Bell Textron Inc., a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, announced the Autonomous Pod Transport’s (APT) successful demonstration of a ground-based Detect and Avoid (DAA) flight, fulfilling an extension for its NASA Systems Integration and Operationalization (SIO) project. The APT DAA demonstration showcased the aircraft’s ground radar system integration and proves its ability to navigate airspace traffic and requirements, a critical component needed for future Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) vehicles. 

The objective of the SIO demonstration was to execute a Beyond Visual Line of Sight mission in complex airspace utilizing DAA technology to monitor the airspace for “natural intruders” using Bell’s 429 commercial helicopter and APT unmanned aircraft. Bell’s QuantiFLYTM system, a new aircraft communication unit (ACU) powered by Truth Data, offering a true low-cost, lightweight, and fully automatic flight data monitoring (FDM) solution, was used on the Bell 429 to record aircraft telemetry data.

“We are excited to demonstrate the effectiveness of ground-based monitoring solutions as part of UAS infrastructure,” said Matt Holvey, director, Intelligent Systems, Bell. “Radar monitoring, whether airborne or ground-based, may become an important part of drone delivery, air taxi services and other aspects of the ever-expanding AAM ecosystem.”

Bell utilized radar systems to monitor the complex airspace within the AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone (MIZ) and track manned and unmanned aircraft systems. The MIZ provides one of the most unique environments in the nation for partner organizations to test, scale and commercialize emerging technologies in air and surface mobility. Hillwood also provided multiple sites for radar set up, and testing was conducted at the AllianceTexas Flight Test Center, located approximately four miles north of Fort Worth Alliance Airport.

“We are honored to partner with Bell to launch the testing initiatives as they work with NASA to lay the foundation for the future of budding air technologies,” said Christopher Ash, senior vice president of aviation business development for Hillwood. “The data they receive from these efforts will enable the industry to advance the commercialization of this technology across multiple platforms.”

Along with Hillwood, Bell has collaborated with Northwest Independent School District (NISD) to provide a site for Bell to install a radar at their Outdoor Learning Center.

In addition, Microsoft provided AirSim, a simulation tool for training Autonomous systems, which gave Bell a Digital Twin environment to model the NASA SIO Extension flight in the virtual world before flying through the corridor. This allowed the team to conduct simulated real-world tests of the APT aircraft across a broad range of scenarios without any safety risks and at a fraction of the cost and time 

Bell Textron Inc., a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, announced the Autonomous Pod Transport’s (APT) successful demonstration of a ground-based Detect and Avoid (DAA) flight, fulfilling an extension for its NASA Systems Integration and Operationalization (SIO) project. The APT DAA demonstration showcased the aircraft’s ground radar system integration and proves its ability to navigate airspace traffic and requirements, a critical component needed for future Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) vehicles. 

The objective of the SIO demonstration was to execute a Beyond Visual Line of Sight mission in complex airspace utilizing DAA technology to monitor the airspace for “natural intruders” using Bell’s 429 commercial helicopter and APT unmanned aircraft. Bell’s QuantiFLYTM system, a new aircraft communication unit (ACU) powered by Truth Data, offering a true low-cost, lightweight, and fully automatic flight data monitoring (FDM) solution, was used on the Bell 429 to record aircraft telemetry data.

“We are excited to demonstrate the effectiveness of ground-based monitoring solutions as part of UAS infrastructure,” said Matt Holvey, director, Intelligent Systems, Bell. “Radar monitoring, whether airborne or ground-based, may become an important part of drone delivery, air taxi services and other aspects of the ever-expanding AAM ecosystem.”

Bell utilized radar systems to monitor the complex airspace within the AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone (MIZ) and track manned and unmanned aircraft systems. The MIZ provides one of the most unique environments in the nation for partner organizations to test, scale and commercialize emerging technologies in air and surface mobility. Hillwood also provided multiple sites for radar set up, and testing was conducted at the AllianceTexas Flight Test Center, located approximately four miles north of Fort Worth Alliance Airport.

“We are honored to partner with Bell to launch the testing initiatives as they work with NASA to lay the foundation for the future of budding air technologies,” said Christopher Ash, senior vice president of aviation business development for Hillwood. “The data they receive from these efforts will enable the industry to advance the commercialization of this technology across multiple platforms.”

Along with Hillwood, Bell has collaborated with Northwest Independent School District (NISD) to provide a site for Bell to install a radar at their Outdoor Learning Center.

In addition, Microsoft provided AirSim, a simulation tool for training Autonomous systems, which gave Bell a Digital Twin environment to model the NASA SIO Extension flight in the virtual world before flying through the corridor. This allowed the team to conduct simulated real-world tests of the APT aircraft across a broad range of scenarios without any safety risks and at a fraction of the cost and time