Background
As commercial aviation has been a major paradigm shift for the development of modern society, we are now facing a new leap in mobility services with the introduction of urban air mobility and urban air delivery.
Oxford Dictionary defines immediacy as:
‘the quality of bringing one into direct and instant involvement with something, giving rise to a sense of urgency or excitement’
Our lives are now depending majorly on immediacy. From our everyday commute to work to the next-minute delivery on our preferred e-commerce platform, we are not good at waiting-in-line. And this has been mostly backed up by fast but robust technology breakthroughs enabling commercial aviation, satellite navigation and intelligent software.
We are now facing a new technology breakthrough that will bring us even more immediacy. Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is finally a plausible reality that will bring multimodal fast commutes inside and around urban areas. Combining conventional means of transport with Urban Air Mobility is not only finally feasible, but it is the way to move forward in these very congested traffic areas.
Furthermore, road delivery is congesting the streets of our cities and sub-urban areas for our everyday supplies. However, the urban sky is still unexplored, and as technology advances and regulatory frameworks develop further, Urban Air Delivery (UAD) services becomes a reality that could provide not only faster, but cleaner, delivery services, thus leaving the streets for the, still utopic, recreational cycle and walk arounds.
This project will have two main pillars of research, development and operational implementation:
Urban Air Mobility. With Airbus as a partner, and Voom supporting the action, the project will demonstrate the present and future benefits of air transport inside a city. European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (EGNSS) will be integrated in the aerial platform as an enabler for the required navigation performance and safety in the very challenging urban environment.
Urban Air Delivery. With Correos as a partner, the project will demonstrate the real possibilities of drone delivery inside a city. Real flights will be performed in the city of Benidorm, enabled by the use of EGNSS and intelligent systems for the safe navigation inside the urban canyons.
The two pillars will provide the individual assets towards the main objective of the project:
To develop the navigation and positioning requirements for the challenging urban air services, and demonstrate how EGNSS stands as an enabler of this future city sky.