Look up — your Uber’s about to arrive
Researchers at the University of Texas will help develop new rotor technology for Uber’s proposed aviation ride-share network, called uberAIR.
The Cockrell School of Engineering on Thursday announced by news release that it will work with the U.S. Army Research Labs and Uber Elevate to develop the technology.
Uber said last year that the first Uber Elevate cities would be Dallas and Los Angeles, with a goal of flight demonstrations in 2020 and plans to make uberAIR commercially available to riders in those cities by 2023.
The planned uberAIR vehicle,
designed to take off and land vertically, will be a fully electric vehicle with cruising speeds of 150 mph to 200 mph, cruising altitudes of 1,000 feet to 2,000 feet, and the ability to fly up to 60 miles on a single charge.
The UT team leader on the project is Jayant Sirohi,
associate professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. He is an expert in unmanned drones, vertical take-off and landing aircraft, and fixed- and rotary-wing aeroelasticity.
He and his team will explore the efficiency and noise level of stacked propellers for vertical takeoff and landing. This technology
has two rotor systems stacked atop each other and rotating in the same direction.
Preliminary testing shows that stacked co-rotating rotors could be more efficient than other approaches. It could also improve the versatility and overall performance for a flying vehicle.
“UT is uniquely positioned
to contribute to this new technology, and Uber has recognized that,” Sirohi said in the news release. “In addition to the technical expertise we bring to this area, we also already have a rig to test new rotor configurations right here on campus.”