Skip to main content

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 30, 2022
    What does 2023 have in store for ITS?
    From VRUs to EVs, from customer experience to connected vehicles, here are some thoughts...
  • July 1, 2015
    Data analytics aids parking enforcement, urban mobility
    A new cloud-enabled performance management system from Xerox uses data analytics to help parking managers better manage workloads, make smarter patrol decisions and create high-performance teams of civil enforcement officers. CitySight automates many manual processes by providing a logging mechanism that analyses the daily activities of civil enforcement officers (CEOs) such as time worked, patrols, public interaction, penalty charge notices and more. Supervisors can then use the insights gleaned from t
  • March 19, 2015
    Additional accuracy enhances ITS options
    High accuracy and reliability of GNSS location data is available using the EGNOS services to be ready for Galileo’s expanding satellite constellation. Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are increasingly a building block for ITS applications from road user charging and E-call to tracking & tracing of freight. Even while the European Space Agency is still assembling the Galileo constellation, EGNOS (the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service) is already providing the basis of a range of ser
  • February 4, 2025
    Utah Department of Transportation: How we’re using traffic analytics software
    Our use of Iteris ClearGuide lets our traffic operations engineers interpret critical probe traffic data without the need for statisticians and software developers