TELSTRA, AIRSPEEDER TAKE 5G TO THE SKIES
TELSTRA Purple and Airspeeder have announced a partnership to bring 5G communications to electric flying car racing.
Flying cars are a reality in Adelaide, where Matt Pearson, also a cofounder of nano-satellite company Fleet Space, is on a mission to create the world’s first racing series for a manned flying electric car.
Mr Pearson is the founder of Alauda, a manufacturing business set up to build the EVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) vehicles, as well as Airspeeder, the racing series. The company’s first unmanned test flights took place near Adelaide in June, featuring the Alaudamk3 – which looks like a futuristic supersized drone.
On Wednesday Alauda and Telstra announced a new communications
partnership through Telstra Purple, Telstra’s technology services business, in which Telstra Purple will provide vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications.
“Telstra Purple will deliver the near real-time virtual race-control system required for the high-speed, closeformat, multi-vehicle circuit racing in the Airspeeder EXA series,” Telstra said .
Mr Pearson said the new technical partnership would bring important benefits to racing and the development of an advanced airmobility future.
“In delivering on our vision to create the world’s first racing series for electric flying cars we have been drawn to South Australia for some of the very best technical minds from motorsport, aviation and performance automotive,“he said.