Uber sees flying commuters
san francisco — Flying commuters like George Jetson could be whizzing to work through the sky less than 10 years from now, according to ride-services provider Uber, which believes the future of transportation is literally looking up.
Uber Technologies Inc has released a white paper envisioning a future in which commuters hop onto a small aircraft, take off vertically and within minutes arrive at their destinations. The flyers would eventually be unmanned, according to the company.
It sounds like the opening sequence to ‘The Jetsons’, the 1962 US cartoon about a future filled with moving sidewalks, robot housekeepers and spaceflight, but Uber sees flying rides as feasible and eventually affordable.
Uber already offers helicopter rides to commuters in Brazil. The company plans to convene a global summit early next year to explore on-demand aviation, in which small electric aircraft could take off and land vertically to reduce congestion and save time for long-distance commuters, and eventually city dwellers.
Others have also envisioned such aircraft, akin to a helicopter but without the noise and emissions. Vertical take off and landing aircraft (VTOL) have been studied and developed for decades, including by aircraft makers, the military, Nasa and the Federal Aviation Administration. Uber is already exploring self-driving technology, hoping to slash costs by eliminating the need for drivers in its core business of on-demand rides. On-demand air transport marks a new frontier, set squarely in the future.
Uber’s vision, detailed in a 97page document, argues that ondemand aviation will be affordable and achievable in the next decade assuming effective collaboration between regulators, communities and manufacturers. Ultimately, using VTOLs for transport could be less expensive than owning a car, Uber predicted. Such on-demand VTOL aircraft would be “optionally piloted,” Uber said, where autonomous technology takes over the main workload and the pilot is relied on for situational awareness. Eventually, the aircraft will likely be fully automated, Uber said.
Hurdles include battery technology. Batteries must come down in cost and charge faster, become more powerful and have longer lifecycles. Regulatory hurdles must also be solved such as certification by aviation regulators as well as infrastructure needs, such
Urban air transportation will use 3D airspace to alleviate congestion
Uber white paper
as more takeoff and landing cites. Uber plans to reach out to stakeholders within the next six months to explore the implications of urban air transport and share ideas before hosting a summit in early 2017 to explore the issues and solutions and help accelerate urban air transportation. Uber said it will be reaching out to cities, manufacturers and others about the concept. “Just as skyscrapers allowed cities to use limited land more efficiently, urban air transportation will use three-dimensional airspace to alleviate transportation congestion on the ground,” said the white paper, authored by Uber chief product officer Jeff Holden and product manager Nikhil Goel.
“A network of small, electric aircraft that take off and land vertically will enable rapid, reliable transportation between suburbs and cities and, ultimately, within cities.” Diagrams in the paper showed aircraft bodies of various designs with propellers that can rotate to allow for vertical lift-off or landing, then move into position for flying forward. Recent advances in technology have made it practical to build VTOL vehicles, according to the paper.
More than a dozen companies taking varied design approaches are working on these types of aircraft, according to the Uber team.
Since VTOL aircraft would be powered by electricity, they would be non-polluting and quiet, the paper said. While Uber isn’t planning to build its concept for a helicopterlike vehicle, the startup said it would organize a conference to discuss the development of VTOL. It refers to the nascent flying-car programme as Uber Elevate.
— Reuters, AFP, Bloomberg