Volocopter pilots air taxi at Helsinki

Volocopter has trialled an air taxi at the Helsinki International Airport in Finland, integrating into the air traffic management (ATM) and unmanned aircraft traffic management (UTM) system. Within the Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) Programme, this demonstration is the final part of the Gulf of Finland (GOF) U-Space project showing how ATM and UTM systems enable urban air mobility (UAM). Maria Tamm, project coordinator from Estonian Air Navigation Services, says rules for using very low-level ai
September 5, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

8772 Volocopter has trialled an air taxi at the Helsinki International Airport in Finland, integrating into the air traffic management (ATM) and unmanned aircraft traffic management (UTM) system.

Within the Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) Programme, this demonstration is the final part of the Gulf of Finland (GOF) U-Space project showing how ATM and UTM systems enable urban air mobility (UAM).

Maria Tamm, project coordinator from Estonian Air Navigation Services, says rules for using very low-level airspace needs updating as air traffic continues to rise with the arrival of unmanned aircrafts and air taxis.

“This is where SESAR comes into place and particularly the GOF U-space project for the integration of UTM into the ATM systems or connecting the uncontrolled and controlled airspace,” she continues. “The demonstration at Helsinki airport showed that various systems are ready to safely and efficiently manage air taxi operations, their related services and subsequent interaction within existing aviation and airspace activities.”

Volocopter performed a series of tests with UTM service providers AirMap, Altitude Angel and Unifly. The company also integrated software and hardware to perform different test scenarios including ground tests, unmanned and piloted flights.

Jan-Hendrik Boelens, chief technology officer of Volocopter, says: “We will build our first VoloPort infrastructure before the year is out and with the GOF U-Space demonstration we have now shown that the existing UTM technologies are viable for UAM.”

Related Content

  • April 25, 2022
    Come fly with me in Coventry
    Urban-Air Port opens eVTOL demo in UK city for a month before taking concept on the road
    Read More
  • June 17, 2019
    How MaaS and AVs can cut Oslo traffic
    A new study shows that on-demand AVs and MaaS together could make a significant difference to traffic in Oslo, Norway – but only if ride-share is involved too If you replace today’s traditional private car ownership with a mixture of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and on-demand autonomous vehicles (AVs) running door-to-door, you could make dramatic cuts in city traffic. That, at least, is the view of researchers from COWI and PTV, who have modelled a variety of future scenarios based on the morning rush h
    Read More
  • October 20, 2020
    Tampa CV pilot ‘underestimated’ challenges
    Connected vehicle applications may be falsely marketed as 'deployment-ready', review warns
    Read More
  • March 29, 2018
    Report highlights community impact of new mobility options
    Local authorities and communities must understand the impacts of the new mobility options and regulate to get the transport systems they want, according to a new report. Colin Sowman takes a look. Outside of the big cities plagued with congestion, the existing transportation system(s) often cope adequately, and the ongoing workload (maintenance, safety…) is more than enough to keep local transport authorities busy. Is it, therefore, a good use of public service employees’ time to keep abreast of the raft
    Read More

Highlighted Content