Building Digital Bridges for Citizen-Centered Air Mobility

Sotirios Xydis is the Principal Investigator at ICCS-NTUA and Assistant Professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens. In this interview, Sotirios discusses how his team at Microlab (Microprocessors and Systems Laboratory) is contributing to ImAFUSA by developing the project’s digital and analytical core.

Their work focuses on two main goals:

Software development and integration:

“We are the team that will manage to collect all the new knowledge, all the new formulas we will develop in the project, [and] put it in a unified framework so [we can] be able to deliver [it] to our stakeholders.”

Advanced data analysis:

“Our second role is more, let’s say, research oriented-applying modern deep learning techniques in order to advance the data collection and analysis provided through ImAFUSA questions.”

What sets ImAFUSA apart, according to Sotirios, is its citizen-first approach.

“ImAFUSA has been actually built having EU citizens as the main target.”

The aim is to give municipalities and public authorities the tools they need to design Innovative Air Mobility (IAM) services that reflect...

“...preferences, acceptability criteria and acceptance criteria of the citizens themselves for these new technologies.”

This work is not just about building technology, but about ensuring innovation is rooted in trust, accessibility, and societal relevance.

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