Volocopter and Fraport to develop ground infrastructure for air taxis
Volocopter and Fraport to develop ground infrastructure for air taxis
Volocopter has joined forces with Fraport to develop concepts for the ground infrastructure required to allow air taxis at Frankfurt Airport in Germany.
Volocopter says its partnership with German airport manager Fraport will focus on integrating what it calls ‘Volocopter Ports’ into existing infrastructure.
The company believes that these could be used in the future to serve as a link between existing urban transportation junctions and provide connections to and from the airport.
The Volocopter
February 15, 2019
Read time: 2 mins
8772 Volocopter has joined forces with Fraport to develop concepts for the ground infrastructure required to allow air taxis at Frankfurt Airport in Germany.
Volocopter says its partnership with German airport manager Fraport will focus on integrating what it calls ‘Volocopter Ports’ into existing infrastructure.
The company believes that these could be used in the future to serve as a link between existing urban transportation junctions and provide connections to and from the airport.
The Volocopter air taxi is based on drone technology and is suitable for urban transport as it generates no emissions, the company adds.
Florian Reuter, CEO of Volocopter, says the partnership will work to integrate the air taxi service safely and efficiently into the airport.
Volocopter is also taking steps to integrate its technology in %$Linker: 2External<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary />000link-external Singaporefalsehttp://www.itsinternational.com/categories/utc/news/volocopter-to-test-electric-air-taxis-in-singapore-in-2019/falsefalse%>. Last October, the company announced plans to conduct trials in the country’s urban environments which are expected to lead to public demonstration trials.
German urban air taxi manufacturer Volocopter has signed a deal with 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 mob
Volocopter will trial its air taxis in Singapore’s urban environments in the second half of 2019. The initiative is expected to lead to public demonstration flights.
The company says the eVtols, based on drone technology, can carry two passengers for a distance up to 30 km.
These air taxis can manoeuvre safely around skyscrapers to ensure a smooth ride for passengers, Volocopter adds.
Volocopter will work with the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) to establish the scope of the trials