European Sky ATM Research Joint Undertaking or SESAR-JU has formed a collaboration with the aim of designing and also testing concepts of operations for different urban air mobility applications within the European U-Space framework with the aim of accumulating more than 100 flight hours over the next two years.
There are 17 companies that makes up the consortium and that includes airspace services such as Altitude Angel and ANRA Technologies, academic institutions like Cranfield University, as well as Aerospace companies like Boeing and Airbus and even Tecnalia and EHang are all part of the consortium.
“The project will allow UAM stakeholders to specify various use cases applicable to logistics and urban transport of passengers, to design or integrate UAM environment, to test the UAS ground and airborne platforms and finally, to assess safety, security, sustainability and public acceptance,” a SESAR-JU press release stated.
The project is called the Air Mobility Urban – Large Experimental Demonstrations (AMU-LED) and its primary mission includes designing detailed concepts of operations for urban air mobility mission and then carrying out simulation and then a large real flight demonstration campaign in order to verify and validate the concepts.
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Among the 17-company consortium is the Spanish research and research center Tecnalia which had been able to develop a single-passenger multicopter in hover and committed to demonstration flights above two regional capital cities by 2022.
While EHang, a Chinese first-mover has stated it will begin its campaigns in three cities in Austria and Spain as air mobility pilot cities and in December achieved first flight of its EH216 in Austria with FAAC.
The company, publicly listed on the Nasdaq under ‘EH’, has seen its stock soar by more than 400 percent in the last month.
“Throughout 2022, EHang will perform trial operations of the EH216, its flagship two-seat passenger-grade AAV [autonomous aerial vehicle], in three countries: Spain, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands,” the company said in a release, noting the program will increase EHang’s involvement with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
AMU-LED received €4 million in funding from SESAR-JU’s European Union Horizons 2020 research and innovation program.
The future of urban air mobility technology seems bright even though we might not see them in this decade just yet. But the future of transportation seems to be bright and airborne. If you think otherwise, let’s know your thoughts in the comment section below.
