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The burgeoning future of personal airborne transportation is a topic on many minds of late as advancements in aviation technology make the prospect of flying cars and similar vehicles more and more feasible. Now, HOK is entering its name into a mix with a design for what will be the world’s... View full entry
A new electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) terminal concept has been unveiled by Foster + Partners. The firm says its plan would augment the Dubai International Airport (DBX) and was developed in unison with Skyports Infrastructure, which Foster + Partners called a leader in advanced air... View full entry
According to South Korean car manufacturer, Hyundai, flying cars will exist in cities around the world by the end of this decade. At the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) conference, a trade association for the United Kingdom motor industry, Michael Cole, the president and chief... View full entry
If Uber is to get its “flying taxi” service off the ground, it will need dozens of launchpads and landing sites on rooftops around cities as a supportive infrastructure. At the ride-hailing company’s second annual Elevate conference in Los Angeles, six architecture firms presented their winning designs of what these so-called “Skyports” could look like. And holy cow, these things look straight out of Star Wars. — The Verge
It was all futuristic sky towers, helipads, and beehive references this week when six architecture firms presented their "uberAIR Skyport" design proposals for Uber's autonomous flying taxi service in the not-too-distant future. According to the call for proposals, all facilities needed to be... View full entry
Teaming up with NASA is a big deal for Uber. First, it allows the company to tout the approval of the highly regarded space agency to skeptics. [...] Holden said that Uber wouldn’t have to wait for 2020 before it starts testing things out IRL. The company aims to begin operating a fleet of low-flying helicopters around Dallas-Fort Worth Airport — while working with air traffic controllers to not encroach on their flight paths —as a way to test NASA’s UTM system. — The Verge
Uber has teamed up with NASA to create an aerial taxi service called UberAIR. Los Angles was just announced as a city now working with the company to host their program along with Dallas-Forth Worth and Dubai. At least 19 other companies are currently developing flying car plans. Check out... View full entry
Hot on the heels of announcing a new initiative to build a miniature city on Mars, the Dubai government has unveiled the first successfully-tested Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (AAV)—aka a flying car. Apparently, they will begin operations as early as July.Manufactured by the Chinese company EHANG... View full entry
Airbus appears to be serious about its "Vahana" project, aimed at creating an autonomous passenger drone network, and thinks testing can begin as early as 2017. [...]
Airbus is also working on a drone delivery service [...] and plans to start testing it at a Singapore university by mid-2017. The cargo-laden vehicles fly automated routes in "aerial corridors," then drop them off and send delivery notifications to customers.
— Engadget
Airbus engineers are dreaming up no small endeavor as laid out in the company's Future of Urban Mobility vision: "Imagine landing at a major international airport after a long flight in an A380. Instead of suffering through a 90-minute taxi ride in the megacity’s gridlocked traffic, you hop into... View full entry
The idea behind the Chinese-built 184 is that users will simply get in, power it up, select their destination using a 12-inch touchscreen tablet display, then press the 'take-off' button. The drone's automated flight systems will take over from there, managing tasks such as communication with air traffic control and other aircraft, obstacle avoidance, and of course navigation... — gizmag
Self-driving cars, self-driving bikes, the Hyperloop slowly becoming a reality, what's next for urban mobility? Self-driving passenger drones, of course. Smart-drone enterprise Ehang unveiled a single-seat, battery-powered Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (AAV) called the Ehang 184 at the... View full entry