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

  • December 3, 2018
    Panasonic in Colorado: Rocky mountain way
    Panasonic is at the heart of a C-V2X project which began last year in Colorado. The company’s smart mobility boss Chris Armstrong tells Adam Hill how it is working out Colorado needs traffic and transport solutions – and fast. The US state’s population has grown 50% in the last 20 years and another 50% hike is predicted in the next 20. It also spends more than $13 billion in roadway crash costs each year. In 2015, 546 people died in traffic-related crashes, and more than 3,000 were seriously injured.
    Read More
  • May 10, 2019
    SafeRide: it’s time to act on cyberattacks
    Cyber threats are increasing rapidly and conventional security measures are unable to keep up. Ben Spencer talks to SafeRide’s Gil Reiter about what OEMs can do now As more vehicles become connected, so the potential threats to their security increase. Gil Reiter, vice president of product management for security firm SafeRide, says the biggest ‘attack surface’ for connected cars is their internet connectivity - and the in-vehicle applications that use the internet connection. “The most vulnerable co
    Read More
  • February 3, 2012
    Healthy prospects for floating vehicle data systems
    Elmar Brockfeld, Alexander Sohr and Peter Wagner from the German Aerospace Center's Institute of Transport Systems look at the prospects for floating vehicle data systems. Although Floating Vehicle Data (FVD) or probe vehicle fleets have been around for about a decade, the idea behind them is of course much older: from probe vehicles that flow with the traffic it should be possible to get a precise, fast and spatially near-complete picture of the prevailing traffic flow conditions in an area under surveilla
    Read More
  • October 28, 2016
    Austrian Institute of Technology developing driver assistance systems
    The Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) will be presenting its developments in image processing at Vision 2016, including a driver assistance system for trams and fully autonomous vehicles such as a modern drive-by-wire tractor recently which has been developed into a completely autonomous vehicle for use in special off-road scenarios.
    Read More

Highlighted Content