Moving up – readying vertical transport communications

This story first appeared in the October issue of AutoTalk – CLICK HERE to download the magazine FREE

It’s not a futuristic vision anymore to imagine flying taxis, like in the movie The Fifth Element, set in the 23rd century with Bruce Willis as a flying taxi driver.

That’s because they’re in production along with a variety of other flying transportation vehicles.

More than 54% of the world’s population is now living in urban areas, and traffic jams are a daily occurrence.
Flying vehicles could be one solution.

Manufacturers are prototyping and testing vertical transport systems; electric flying vehicles, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles such as Cora being trialled here, automated drones and remote piloted aircraft (RPAs).

These flying vehicles can take off, hover and land vertically on the tops of tall city buildings or designated open spaces, and don’t require runways.

You might say that helicopters have been doing this for years, but the difference with electric flight is that it’s far quieter, they can fly lower, and they are more sustainable with low emissions.

There is no precedent for regulation or legislation to guide these types of ground-air vehicles taking to the sky.

So, while the technology is rapidly progressing, civil aviation rules and legislative frameworks also need to progress to inform how these vehicles operate.

Vital to moving into the sky is transport communication between vehicles, airspace controllers and people.

We know that communications are necessary for traditional airspace navigation functions such as distance measurement, instrument landing and global positioning.

But VTOL vehicles and RPAs are adding an extra level of complexity.

Future communications systems will need to enable communication directly with individual consumers, provide flight safety for a potentially high volume of vehicles, and attach to small vehicles with minimal weight allowance.

The progress of vertical communications architecture needs to be considered together with the progress in the structural technology of flying vehicles.

While possibly daunting, the challenge of how to integrate and co-ordinate communications systems isn’t insurmountable, merely one that’s important to address early.

As reported by CBINSIGHTS in January 2018, Amazon has a patent for the design of a new flight management system that uses sensors, processors and wireless communication to enable the automated, always-on detection of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operating within the airspace occupied by another UAV.

While these communications technologies exist and are being used in autonomous cars, they would need to be enhanced to provide the longer-range sensing and recognition capabilities required to deal with the multidirectional and convergence speeds associated with autonomous flight.

Using smartphone GPS navigational systems, apps provide information to autonomous road vehicles that a pedestrian is waiting to cross the road, and the location from which they will cross.

In a similar approach, on-board systems in flying vehicles could detect other air vehicles.

This would allow smart flying vehicles to avoid a collision by flying around obstructions or, if it is a drone, by sending directions to the drone for it to move out of the flight path of the smart flying vehicle.

While artificial intelligence has allowed for rapid improvements in the automation of flying, it makes the vertical communications systems even more critical for collision avoidance.

Not too many collision avoidance communications systems have been significantly tested in functioning vehicles.

Further discussions, research and testing is required about what other applications AI should or will have with unmanned vehicles.

Safety is the core of any decision on communications architecture.

How will swarms of flying cars integrate into already busy commercial airspace, or the urban airspace?

New and unprecedented rules will need to be set that ensure flying vehicles are safe in their construction, safe in their movement through the sky and safe in the communication with other vehicles, central control and people.