Skip to main content

Honeywell and Volocopter sign air taxi testing deal

German urban air taxi manufacturer Volocopter has signed a deal with Honeywell to jointly develop new navigation and automatic landing systems. They will be used on Volocopter’s vertical take-off and landing aircraft - perhaps as early as this year, the companies suggest. “A key goal of our collaboration is to fly a Honeywell inertial measurement-based attitude reference system solution in one of our Volocopters in 2019,” says Jan Hendrik Boelens, chief technology officer, Volocopter. Urban air mob
April 16, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

German urban air taxi manufacturer 8772 Volocopter has signed a deal with 3857 Honeywell to jointly develop new navigation and automatic landing systems.

They will be used on Volocopter’s vertical take-off and landing aircraft - perhaps as early as this year, the companies suggest.

“A key goal of our collaboration is to fly a Honeywell inertial measurement-based attitude reference system solution in one of our Volocopters in 2019,” says Jan Hendrik Boelens, chief technology officer, Volocopter.

Urban air mobility is seen by its supporters as having a key role to play in cities of the future. Volocopter plans to test its air taxis in %$Linker: 2 Internal <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 4 37214 0 link-external Singapore false /categories/utc/news/volocopter-to-test-electric-air-taxis-in-singapore-in-2019/ false false%> later this year and has signed an agreement with authorities at %$Linker: 2 Internal <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 4 38315 0 link-external Frankfurt false /sections/general/news/volocopter-and-fraport-to-develop-ground-infrastructure-for-air-taxis/ false false%> Airport to develop ground infrastructure.

“Congestion and traffic jams continue to be time killers for people in modern megacities,” Boelens says. “New time-saving, environmentally-friendly solutions are required, and air taxis will certainly be one of them. Honeywell’s wealth of experience and knowledge in the development of next-generation avionics technologies combined with our manufacturing expertise will make autonomous, on-demand air mobility a reality across the world.”

Honeywell has a range of autonomous sensing and flight technologies, such as inertial measurement units and attitude heading reference solutions.

Related Content

  • January 6, 2015
    Last date for ITS World Congress papers - reminder
    The deadline for the ITS World Congress 2015 Call for Papers and Special Interest Sessions submission is fast approaching. Authors must submit technical, scientific, commercial papers and special interest sessions by 19 January. No extensions will be granted.
  • December 19, 2018
    Aptiv opens technical centre in Las Vegas
    Aptiv has opened a technical centre in Las Vegas, US, to gather insights on its fleet of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and to improve safety operator training. Aptiv says its AVs are supporting more than 1,600 destinations across Clark County and the city, including entertainment venues such as the Las Vegas Convention Center and City Hall. In May, Aptiv launched 30 AVs in the city to pick up riders using Lyft’s app and network. The new, 130,000 square-foot technical centre will facilitate vehicle opera
  • January 24, 2019
    Bosch to trial driverless tech on Australia’s high-speed rural roads
    Bosch has received an automated driving system (ADS) permit from the Victorian government to test automated vehicle technology on high-speed rural roads in the south-eastern Australian state. Bosch is to use a $2.3 million grant from the Connected and Automated Vehicle (C/AV) Trial Grants Programme to develop the technology, which will be tested later this year. The C/AV programme funded through the government’s $1.4 million Towards Zero Action Plan – an initiative which provides guidelines on how V
  • December 19, 2018
    Elon Musk unveils Los Angeles tunnel plan
    Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla and SpaceX, has opened the first tunnel in a planned network under Los Angeles to help ease congestion in the US city. The world’s media was invited this week to travel in the mile-long tunnel – built by Musk’s Boring Company under the Hawthorne district - in an electric Tesla vehicle. The trip was described as “almost a white knuckle ride” by the BBC: “A bumpy two-minute journey in a modified Model X through a concrete tunnel with a blue neon light in the ceiling.” A C