Microsoft is collaborating with German urban air mobility developer Volocopter GmbH to develop an aerospace cloud system in Microsoft Azure for eVTOLs, urban air mobility, and autonomous aviation.

Under the colloboration, Azure will support Volocopter’s digital platform VoloIQ, the operating system for Volocopter’s UAM services, and its subsequent transition to autonomous operations.

Volocopter plans to make the VoloIQ its standard UAM operating system for all electric passenger and drone flight operations.

According to Volocopter, its UAM operating system structure will be significant, covering aspects such as booking and e-commerce, commercial scheduling, operational network planning, flight planning, flight monitoring, supplying airspace digital twins, and vehicle data logging and analysis. Volocopter has chosen Microsoft to interconnect all these separate UAM components into an integrated set of services.

Volocopter and Microsoft will begin collaborating by ensuring Microsoft Azure meets the VoloIQ’s needs for commercial operations. Azure will then provide a real-time platform for VoloIQ’s flight and service support for Volocopter’s eVTOL VoloCity, VoloDrone, and VoloConnect aircraft, alongside its VoloPort ground infrastructure.

“Having Microsoft on board as a project partner and investor is proof that the solutions Volocopter creates – like the VoloIQ – are pioneering and hold remarkable market potential,” said Alexander Oelling, Volocopter’s Chief Digital Officer. “We’re proud that Microsoft Azure is the one to provide a secure cloud and thus to ensure safety remains at the forefront of our operations.”

“From the newest technologies to regulation, creating solutions to seamlessly address the cloud computing requirements for supporting continued advancements in aviation is a complex endeavour. We certainly see the potential a secure, robust, and efficient cloud platform could offer aerospace and urban air mobility operators,” said Uli Homann, CVP of Cloud and AI at Microsoft. “Working in collaboration with Volocopter, we will start to build the foundation for a commercial model for aerospace cloud.”

The collaboration between Volocopter and Microsoft was first publicised in 2020, when Volocopter and Lufthansa Industry Solutions announced plans to develop the VoloIQ for autonomous aircraft operations using Microsoft Azure.