Honeywell and Volocopter sign air taxi testing deal

German urban air taxi manufacturer 8772 Volocopter has signed a deal with 3857 Honeywell to jointly develop new navigation and automatic landing systems.

They will be used on Volocopter’s vertical take-off and landing aircraft - perhaps as early as this year, the companies suggest.

“A key goal of our collaboration is to fly a Honeywell inertial measurement-based attitude reference system solution in one of our Volocopters in 2019,” says Jan Hendrik Boelens, chief technology officer, Volocopter.

Urban air mobility is seen by its supporters as having a key role to play in cities of the future. Volocopter plans to test its air taxis in <%$Linker:2Internal<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary />4372140link-external Singaporefalse/categories/utc/news/volocopter-to-test-electric-air-taxis-in-singapore-in-2019/falsefalse%> later this year and has signed an agreement with authorities at <%$Linker:2Internal<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary />4383150link-external Frankfurtfalse/sections/general/news/volocopter-and-fraport-to-develop-ground-infrastructure-for-air-taxis/falsefalse%> Airport to develop ground infrastructure.

“Congestion and traffic jams continue to be time killers for people in modern megacities,” Boelens says. “New time-saving, environmentally-friendly solutions are required, and air taxis will certainly be one of them. Honeywell’s wealth of experience and knowledge in the development of next-generation avionics technologies combined with our manufacturing expertise will make autonomous, on-demand air mobility a reality across the world.”

Honeywell has a range of autonomous sensing and flight technologies, such as inertial measurement units and attitude heading reference solutions.