Pilotless Sky Taxis

The first passenger carrying sky taxi is going to be introduced. The technology firms are competing with each other and they are going to prepare the air taxis in the market very soon. This time, Dubai is also forwarding in this race and it has signed the agreement between the Road Transport Authority RTA and German Start up Volocopter to try these taxis towards the end of 2017.

The Volocopter has been awarded the 25m euros by the investors in which the motor manufacturing company of Germany, Daimler to manufacture the 18 rotor prototype and it should be able to carry two persons at a time. The promo clip of the new craft prepared by Volocopter, shows the speed and flight time. The company claims that the sky taxi has the top speed of 60 mph and it will be airborne for maximum 30 minutes. The German company has also made the safety assurances and the pilotless sky taxi prototype will be added with nine independent batteries and the parachute is also added with it as precaution.
Working of a Chinese Firm
RTA director made the partnership with the Chinese firm, Ehang and they conducted the test flight of single passenger prototype called Ehang 184, which is autonomous aerial vehicle.
Dubai is leading in this field while other countries are also following and Uber got the services of chief technologist of NASA to work with them as head of their project elevate and it the future of Uber air transport system.
The giant French air transport, Airbus is now busy in the development of air taxi and they said that they would start the testing of the air taxi at the end of this year and they can launch one air taxi by 2020.

The horizontal rotor technology is used to make the innovation and it will enable the sky taxi to carry out the vertical takeoff and landing. For these air taxes, no special runways are needed and it is excellent to use in urban areas. For the manufacturing of the air taxis, light material like carbon fiber is use and it helps to reduce the weight of the air taxi. When you talk about the affordability, there are three o r four passengers in a pool and it will be similar what UberX car costs today.
When they check the flight time, it is noted that 23 minutes is the maximum time that craft of Ehang achieved. But the chief technologist of Uber said that the batteries are being removed and it would be got ready by 2023 and Uber has made the plan to introduce 50 air taxis. The companies are facing the problem of fast recharging capability and it is solution to this problem that it could be used two part drone and the batteries are to be stored in removable base. They can be switched during flight.
The experts said that taxi would be programmed to make the emergency landing when fuel would be very low during flight. To face the problem of critical fuel level, he believed that drone would have various backup system like automatically triggered ballistic parachute, if the drone are descended beyond stored parameters.
The management of airspace is the issue and it is needed to be settled before these taxis start their air travelling. NTX research center at NASA is determining the ways to work the corridor of flight without voice interactions. They have developed the technology of ‘sense and avoid’, which aid the taxis to communicate with each other and they maintain distance and avoid the collision.
The regulation is the biggest issue in sky taxi flights and the commercial aircrafts can takeoff, land and fly on their own and the US Federal Aviation Administration and European Aviation safety Agency requires the services of pilot to be present. When they win the regulatory and gain the favorable public views, it is going to be quite difficult.