Dayton Daily News: Wright State gets $896K grant to fuel advanced air mobility research

Wright State University will use a new $896,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Higher Education to explore air taxi battery power and efficiency — hoping to share new insights with some of the industry’s leading players, including Dayton-bound Joby Aviation.

The funding supports Wright State’s advanced air mobility research — that area of aviation thought of as the “first and last leg of air travel,” achieved with electric-powered vertical takeoff-and-landing vehicles that lift off like a helicopter and cruise forward like an airplane.

Advanced air mobility provides new ways to move people and cargo between places more quickly than automobiles and more quietly than helicopters or planes.

Darryl Ahner, dean of WSU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, said in an interview that the university’s work in the area began in January.

He calls the research two-pronged, an examination of potential improvements into the batteries that power air taxis and ways to make the vehicles overall more efficient and their sensors more powerful.

“I would call it two different focus areas,” Ahner said.

Read the complete article at daytondailynews.com.