Volocopter hopes to have air taxis in five years
In addition to autonomous vehicles crawling the cities without drivers, we should start getting ready for the sky to be taken over by robot chauffeurs.
One of the companies working on future air taxis is Germany-based Volocopter, engadget.com wrote.
Its 18-rotored human-sized drone took flight at Intel’s CES keynote and was on display at the Las Vegas Convention Center. So naturally, we asked to sit in it.
Volocopter began its journey to autonomous air taxis in 2013 and has made some impressive progress in the past four years.
It’s been flown not only on stage at CES, it’s taken flight in Germany and completed an autonomous flight in Dubai. It used GPS waypoints during that pilotless excursion.
The drone’s 18 rotors are powered by nine batteries which power two rotors each. The tiny propellers that share a
Wireless transmission of electricity has been a dream of engineers for a long time. More than a hundred years ago, Nikola Tesla spent a fortune trying to build a device to transmit electricity over long distances.
Today, in a world full of smartphones, laptops, and other devices that need frequent charging, that dream remains alive, digitaltrends.com wrote.
‘Wireless’ charging systems, like Qi, do exist, but they still require users to set a device on a charging mat, eliminating the need for cables but not the need to set your phone down.
A company called Ossia hopes to change the industry with what it proclaims to be a true wireless charging battery are situated on opposite ends of the aircraft. That way if a battery fails, it won’t seriously affect the stability of the Volocopter.
system, and CEO Mario Obeidat stopped by Digital Trends’ CES 2018 booth to share some info about Ossia’s ‘Forever Battery’, a revolutionary take on an old design.
The Forever Battery comes
That powerpack will keep the aircraft in the sky for 30 minutes. Long enough for urban air-transportation according to the aircraft maker.
from distances of up to 30 feet, with nary a wire to be seen between them.
“Think of Wi-fi,” Obeidat said. “Just like you have a Wifi router in the home, you have a Cota transmitter. You have
When it lands, instead of plugging the Volocopter in, the rear cone can be removed and the battery packs swapped in about three to five minutes.
It is currently a manual operation, but the company envisions robots taking care of this in the future.
But even with its successful test flights and Intel’s avoidance system on board, it’ll be a while before any of us are taking sky taxis to our destinations.
Flight trials with pilots will commence in about two years with autonomous trials about a year after that. During that, the company will also have to navigate the FAA and other regulatory institutions.
But it is hopeful that by the time the technology is ready (in about five years) the government will be as well. Then you might have the option of taking either a self-driving car or autonomous sky taxi to your destination.
space; if a person were to move in the way, Cota would angle the beam to avoid them.
Obeidat went on to explain that users could have the battery in a variety of devices, such as smoke detectors or remote
end, the company hopes to partner with large smartphone manufacturers to integrate Cota into their smartphone batteries.
Ossia’s tech is so radical that it has earned the CES Innovation Award for three straight years. Don’t expect Cota to replace power lines as the arteries of modern civilization, however. Cota is focused on low-power devices for now. “Once you’re talking about 10 watts and 20 watts, that becomes a little bit outside,” Obeidat said.
Still, if Ossia’s tech works, it would be a major convenience for consumers — and a great boon for the environment, given the hazards of battery disposal.