Blue Skies from Unmanned Experts is a pioneering solution for planning, simulating, fielding, and implementing Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) systems. One of the questions I get asked often is, "What is a mesh network, and how is it different from a traditional radio network?" There are many ways to answer this question, but most require an unnecessary deep dive into the technology, leaving us scratching our heads. Here's a different approach.
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Blue Skies is a pioneering solution for planning, simulating, fielding, and implementing Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) systems. One of the questions I get asked often is, "What is a mesh network, and how is it different from a traditional radio network?" There are many ways to answer this question, but most require an unnecessary deep dive into the technology, leaving us scratching our heads. Here, I thought I would try a different approach.
The resilience of Unmanned Experts Blue Skies AAM software depends on the underlying communications systems that link the aircraft and ground components together. Just like a well-designed network of city streets needs multiple routes between destinations, our communication system utilizes a mesh network approach that creates multiple paths for critical information to flow.
Think of a mesh network as a living, breathing web of connections. When one aircraft communicates with another, or with ground stations, the message can take multiple paths to reach its destination. If one path becomes unavailable – perhaps due to interference or distance – the network automatically finds another route, much like how your car’s GPS reroutes you around traffic. This self-healing capability ensures that aircraft maintain reliable connections even in challenging conditions.
This robust approach to connectivity does more than just keep aircraft and ground stations talking to each other. It creates layers of redundancy that enhance safety, improve operational efficiency, and allow our network to grow naturally as more aircraft join the system. By avoiding single points of failure, our mesh network architecture provides the foundation for truly resilient air mobility operations, ensuring that the skies of tomorrow remain as dependable as the roads of today.
If you are still wondering what a mesh network is and why it’s different from a traditional radio network, here’s a short vignette about a hurricane with a basketball analogy.
Sarah watched from her window as the storm clouds gathered. Living in coastal Florida meant getting used to hurricanes, but this one looked nasty. The weather service predicted Category 4 winds, and the last time that happened, their neighborhood lost power for nearly two weeks. But things were different now. About three months ago, before the hurricane season started, their community had invested in what the tech folks called a "mesh network." Sarah hadn't fully understood it at first – something about each house having a small device that could talk to other nearby homes, creating a web of connections throughout the neighborhood. Her teenage son Tommy had tried explaining it using his basketball team as an analogy. "See, Mom," he'd said, "it's like how we pass the ball on the court. I don't have to give it directly to Joey under the basket. I can pass it to Mark, who passes it to David, who gets it to Joey. If someone's blocked, we find another way to move the ball. That's what these devices do with information – they find the best path to share it."
Sarah's phone buzzed with a neighborhood alert as the wind began to pick up outside. A fallen tree had taken out the main power line three blocks away. In the old days, this would have meant immediate darkness for everyone past that point. But not anymore. She watched her home's energy dashboard as it automatically adjusted. Despite the gloomy sky, their solar panels were still generating power, and the system was now sharing energy with nearby homes through its microgrid. Houses with backup batteries were contributing power, too, all managed by the mesh network that knit their community together. The storm raged on, but inside, life continued almost normally. While some neighborhoods went dark, their lights stayed on, though slightly dimmed to conserve energy. Their internet kept working too, hopping from house to house through the mesh network, finding new paths around damaged connections like water flowing around rocks in a stream.
The next morning, as the storm cleared, Sarah walked outside to survey the damage. There were branches down and some minor flooding, but their neighborhood had weathered the storm remarkably well. Some of the neighborhood's solar panels had been damaged, and one of the community battery units was offline. However, the network had automatically reorganized itself, balancing the remaining resources among all connected homes. It wasn't operating at full capacity, but everyone still had enough power for their essential needs. The mesh network's self-healing capability had automatically rerouted connections around damaged points, like Tommy's basketball team adapting to a strong defense.
The mesh network had turned their neighborhood into something more resilient, adaptive, and collaborative. It wasn't just about keeping the lights on (though that was certainly nice). It was about creating a community that could bend without breaking, heal itself, and keep everyone connected when it mattered most. Instead of each household fending for itself in isolation, they were all connected – sharing power, information, and support.
Battalion Chief Maggie Thomas watched the smoke column build against the azure Colorado sky. The Thompson Ridge Fire had already consumed 5,000 acres of drought-stressed pine forest, and spot fires were sprouting up miles ahead of the main blaze. But unlike the catastrophic fires of previous decades, her teams weren't fighting blind. A constellation of connections hummed around her. Through a state grant the county had received last year after the Cider Ridge Fire, Maggie’s department procured a system called Blue Skies from UMEX. Installed as part of this system, each firefighter, vehicle, and aircraft carried a small mesh radio, creating an invisible communication web that adapted as teams moved across the rugged terrain. Their network never wavered even as the fire took out cell towers along East Ridge Road.
"Hotshot Team Two, be advised," Maggie’s tablet chirped. "Drone feed shows spot fire developing in Box Canyon, a half-mile northeast of your position."
The message had hopped from the drone operator five miles away, through three different ground teams and a spotter plane, before reaching her command post – all in a fraction of a second. Jake Martinez, leading the hotshot crew, responded immediately. His voice came through clearly despite being on the other side of a ridge that would have blocked the traditional walkie-talkie radios they used last year. The new Blue Skies mesh network had automatically found the best path for his transmission, bouncing it through other nearby teams and aerial units until it reached the Air Commons display set up in the temporary command center.
"Copy that, Command. We're seeing it now. Request aerial support."
Maggie watched the display on her tactical tablet as the network instantaneously reorganized itself. A helicopter supporting operations on the eastern flank was already banking toward Box Canyon, its crew receiving the air tasking order in real-time on their pilot display. The AI built into Blue Skies had automatically prioritized this emergency transmission, ensuring every nearby resource got the information simultaneously. The helicopter's mesh radio expanded the network's reach as it flew higher, temporarily bridging communications between teams separated by challenging terrain. Below, ground crews were already adjusting their positions, their movements coordinated through the shared tactical display, showing every connected resource.
"Command, Air Attack." The spotter plane's transmission is routed through the helicopter. "Fire behavior is shifting. Sending infrared scan now."
The thermal imagery generated by the spotter plane flowed through the mesh network, each node helping to relay the critical data over the rocky hills and dense valley vegetation. Maggie’s display updated in real-time, showing the fire's intense heat signatures and predicted spread patterns. The artificial intelligence built into the Air Commons software analyzed the data as it streamed in, automatically flagging dangerous fire behavior and potential escape routes. When a sudden wind shift threatened to cut off Team Two's primary escape route, the network's distributed intelligence recognized the danger before any human could. Alerts pulsed through the network simultaneously to all nearby resources. No single point of failure could prevent this life-saving information from reaching those who needed it.
"All units, Command. Wind shift creating potential entrapment in Box Canyon. Activating emergency protocol Alpha."
The mesh network's self-organizing capability proved invaluable as teams rapidly repositioned. As some units moved out of direct contact with command, their communications seamlessly rerouted through other nodes in the network. Every movement, every update, every vital piece of information found its way through the complex web of connections. Even when the fire's intense heat damaged some mesh nodes, the network automatically healed itself, finding new paths for critical communications. Like a living organism, it adapted to the changing conditions, ensuring no team was ever truly isolated.
By sunset, the Box Canyon spot fire was contained. Maggie watched the tactical display as the icons representing her teams moved to safer positions. The fire still raged elsewhere, but its advance had been checked. Not a single firefighter had been caught in a dangerous position, thanks to the resilient web of connections that bound them all together.
A weather drone passed overhead, its mesh node temporarily strengthening the network as it surveyed the fire's growth. Its data merged seamlessly into the shared tactical picture, helping planners prepare for tomorrow's operations. The network would keep evolving, keep adapting, keep connecting – just like the firefighters who relied on it.
As night fell, Maggie reflected on how far firefighting had come. Blue Skies and its mesh network wasn't just technology; it was a force multiplier that enhanced the most important asset in fighting wildland fires: human cooperation. Like the firefighters themselves, each part of the network supported the others, creating a whole that was far stronger than the sum of its parts.
The Thompson Ridge Fire would eventually be contained, becoming one more success story in the evolution of wildland firefighting. But for Maggie and her teams, the real victory was in how the Blue Skies had kept them all safer, smarter, and more effective as they faced down the fire’s fury together.
