The Blog

BCAD engaged Woolpert to provide services through a technical solutions for advanced planning services contract for the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) and North Perry (HWO) Airports. Woolpert is providing aviation-related technical training and assisting BCAD with other more general planning technologies issues that may impact FLL and HWO. Woolpert is currently working on the following four tasks: strategy and vision planning, updating BIM standards, developing an uncrewed aircraft systems and advanced air mobility program, and providing on-call support services.

Woolpert is updating BCAD’s 2018 roadmap document to reflect the advancement in technologies used at airports as well as address the everchanging needs of FLL and HWO . Woolpert conducted a visioning workshop with the project manager and stakeholder interviews with all key decision-makers, potential data users, and other interested parties. The purpose of this meeting was to bring together all players and define the common goals for the project. Woolpert is currently analyzing day-to-day functions, business processes, and existing systems and will provide recommendations on process improvements, data integrations, and potential demos of software platforms that would help the airports achieve their goals over the next five years.

Woolpert is reviewing BCAD’s existing BIM standards, which were developed in 2014 and last updated in 2018, comparing them to the most current version (V3) of the National BIM Standard-United States (NBIMS-US) as well as other relevant standards and unique needs of BCAD. The purpose of this effort is to ensure that future BIM standards will be based on the most current CAD and GIS standards. This will allow maximum alignment between standards and minimize any efforts necessary to modify the newly established BIM standard. Woolpert is assessing three existing models from different types of projects at FLL and HWO and modifying them to conform with the new BIM standards. Woolpert is developing FME workbenches or other integration processes necessary to extract the data required by the business systems and deploy the system on BCAD’s production environment. It is anticipated that contractors and/or consultants will have a web portal for the uploading of BIM models and that the web portal can provide some automated checking processes for compliance with BCAD BIM standards.

The UAS program for BCAD touches on three distinct areas of focus: BCAD UAS operations, UAS detection and mitigation, and AAM/electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) preparedness. The program is envisioned to take multiple years as policy, regulation, technology, and industry expertise are emerging and will continue to mature over the next few years. Woolpert is defining the UAS program and standards, testing UAS application at the airport and producing geospatial deliverables, deploying UAS flight and data management tools, and operationalizing UAS for BCAD. For the detection and mitigation program, Woolpert is collaborating with BCAD Operations, police, TSA, DHS, and ATC on the status of UAS threat response plans. This includes assessing detection systems available for deployment, identifying appropriate tools (technical and kinetic) and processes to manage UAS threats, and incorporating considerations for eventual investment and installation of detection and mitigation technology. For this task, Woolpert will also provide BCAD with support services to accommodate the emergence of the AAM and eVTOL aircraft. This includes overall consulting to assist BCAD in reviewing the emergence and integration of AAM and eVTOL at its airports. The objective is to develop a roadmap document that defines BCAD’s AAM goals, anticipated business use cases, likely locations, and major steps needed for its success as these elements relate to existing infrastructure, design guidelines, policy, and funding.

Woolpert will assist BCAD with its ArcGIS Portal upgrade to support newer Esri technologies like Experience Builder, Survey123, Field Maps, etc. Woolpert will also upgrade BCAD’s existing application portal and create a landing page with a modern user interface providing access to various existing and new applications for BCAD departments using Esri’s Experience Builder platform. Other services include data development, data collection, integration with other systems, upgrading existing application or developing new applications, upgrading existing software systems, FME and data automation processes, etc.