VertiSafe AERIE-ZERO Phase 1 — Climate-Bird Risk Engine for Rooftop Vertiports

When the FAA Wildlife Strikes 1990-2024 dataset shows that strikes above 500 feet account for only 25% of events but 50% of damaging strikes, the implication for K-UAM rooftop vertiports is direct. A 30–150 meter rooftop is the bird-strike sweet spot, and the bird population that frequents urban roofs (pigeons, magpies, starlings) is not the same population that has been modeled for traditional airfields (gulls, geese).

The Problem AERIE-ZERO Phase 1 Solves

Bird-strike risk prediction without weather data tops out at roughly 60–70% accuracy under fog, glare, or night conditions. Single-modal vision-based classification — the current state of most operational systems — collapses precisely when the operational risk is highest. AERIE-ZERO Phase 1 closes that gap by fusing six weather variables (wind direction, wind speed, temperature, atmospheric stability, humidity, precipitation) with bird-behavior modeling derived from Cortés-Avizanda (2014) Ecology 95(7) and Ahlering & Faaborg (2006) The Auk 123(2).

Five Sub-Systems Built in 5 Months

Phase 1 is the government-validated sub-system layer of the broader VertiSafe AERIE-ZERO 2-Track architecture. It ships five integrated modules:

1. Climate-Bird Risk Engine (CBRE) — KMA Open API + on-site Vaisala WXT536 → 1h/6h/24h risk grade (5 levels).
2. Adaptive Operations Optimizer (AOO) — weather-aware GO/HOLD/RTB decisions for dispatch.
3. Chamber Efficiency Predictor (CEP) — exterior temperature/humidity inputs for energy-adaptive chamber control.
4. CaaS Auto-Reporting Engine (CARE) — automatic legal reports per Waste Management Act, Livestock Disease Prevention Act, ICAO Annex 14.
5. KPI Verification System — five metrics (BSFRR, DEE, CAI, SDR, CARE accuracy).

Quantified Targets (vs Baseline Without Weather Data)

| KPI | Without Weather | With Weather (Target) | Delta | |---|---|---|---| | BSFRR (Bird Strike False Rate Reduction) | 60–70% | ≥92% | +25–35pp | | DEE (Dispatch Efficiency) | 15–20% risky dispatch | <3% | -15pp | | CAI (Chamber Adaptive Index) | 65% efficiency | ≥92% | +27pp | | SDR (Signal Decomposition Rate) | 80% chamber-only | ≥99% (natural + chamber) | +19pp | | CARE accuracy | 85% manual | ≥99% automatic | +14pp |

Translated to operational outcomes: in a deployment scenario across 50 Korean rooftop vertiports, baseline incident projections of approximately 100 strikes per year drop to about 10 — a 90% reduction.

Government Validation Lineage

The technical foundation of AERIE-ZERO is not a standalone proposal. It explicitly cites and extends the NDMI 2013 "CBRN Virtual Training Simulation Pilot Program Development" report (National Disaster Management Institute, Korea), which validated six dispersion models (Gaussian, Dense Gas, Britter-McQuaid, DEGADIS, HGSYSTEM, SLAB) and Pasquill-Gifford coefficients for Korean atmospheric conditions. AERIE-ZERO extends that NDMI work into a domain it did not cover — rooftop vertiports, urban-adapted bird species, and altitude-specific micrometeorology.

Why This Matters for the K-UAM 2028 Timeline

Korea's K-UAM commercial timeline targets 2028 initial operation. The 30–150m rooftop altitude band that defines urban vertiport approach corridors is the exact altitude band where bird-strike damage probability is concentrated. Without integrated weather-bird modeling, every rooftop vertiport operator faces a structural safety gap that cannot be solved by camera coverage alone.

AERIE-ZERO Phase 1 is the bridge: a five-month government-validated trajectory that produces a working multimodal sub-system, integrates with KMA Open API and KAS-certified sensors, and feeds directly into Phases 2–4 (rooftop mobile robot, ground BLIS-D unmanned helicopter, Compliance-as-a-Service deployment).

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UAM Korea Tech Co., Ltd. — Bio-Logic Vertiport Safety Solutions. Incheon Free Economic Zone, Songdo.