NASA researchers at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, have successfully flown multiple UAVs beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) with no visual observer. The UAVs dodged one another and successfully maneuvered around obstacles before safely landing, the agency said. NASA conducted the tests to help researchers someday create autonomous, self-piloted helicopters that could carry passengers and cargo through busy aerospace.
Researchers used multiple Alta 8 UAVs loaded with software designed to enable autonomous flights. Although monitors observed the flights from a remote-control room at Langley, the UAVs successfully operated BVLOS.
NASA is also testing elements of autonomy using helicopters. They are designed to contribute towards the development of autonomous helicopters that can take off and land from “vertiports,” and transport passengers and cargo over both short and long distances.
The experiments are part of the agency’s Advanced Air Mobility Mission (AAM), which is designed to enable safe autonomous flight and integrate newly developed vehicles into the national airspace. The mission will “set the stage for a flourishing industry” of electric air taxis and UAVs by 2030, NASA says on its AAM website.
NASA will transfer the technology created during this project to the public to ensure industry manufacturers can access the software while designing their vehicles.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released an implementation plan outlining the steps it and others will need to take to enable advanced air mobility (AAM) operations safely. The plan, called Innovate28, includes various components and a timeline for their implementation to hopefully be completed by 2028.
This plan serves as a foundation for making entry into service routine and predictable by maximizing the use of existing procedures and infrastructure. It addresses how the agency and partners will certify aircraft and pilots, manage airspace access, ensure pilot training, develop infrastructure, maintain security and engage communities.
The plan also includes a planning guide that can be applied to any site, laying out key integration objectives and sequences.
Among the entities that play a role in this plan include: the FAA; the advanced air mobility industry; labor partners, NASA; United States Department of Homeland Security; United States Department of Energy; power industry; and state, local and tribal communities.
Pilots will be able to fly the new advanced mobility aircraft to and from multiple locations at the sites, using predetermined flight schedules with pilots aboard.
Advanced air mobility aircraft likely will operate up to 4,000 feet altitude in urban and metropolitan areas, using existing or modified low altitude visual flight rules (VFR) routes where possible within controlled Class B and C airspace around major airports.
Infrastructure
Operators, manufacturers, state and local governments, and other stakeholders will be responsible for planning, developing and enabling heliport/vertiport infrastructure.
Advanced air mobility will initially operate at existing heliports, commercial service airports and general aviation airports. Modifications may be necessary to install charging stations, parking zones and taxiing space.
Power Grid
The electrical power grid may require upgrades to serve advanced air mobility operations.
The FAA has an interagency agreement with the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab to determine how aircraft electrification affects a vertiport, heliport or airport’s electrical grid.
Security
The Department of Homeland Security will determine what type of security is necessary.
The Transportation Security Administration and FAA are evaluating the need for expanded cybersecurity requirements due to the use of advanced technology and operational protocols.
Environment
The FAA will consider the environmental impacts of advanced air mobility operations, including factors such as noise, air quality, visual disturbances and disruption to wildlife.
Community Engagement
The FAA will engage with airports, and local, state, and tribal communities to better understand community concerns about advanced air mobility operations, including noise and mitigations.
Many other stakeholders, such as advanced air mobility operators and airport and vertiport operators will have important roles in community engagement.
The U.S. government has visibly and physically conveyed its interest in getting air taxis into operation, through a visit of 70 people — attached to the newly formed Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Coordination group — to Archer Aviation. The group talked with the executives of the company developing the “Midnight’ air-taxi aircraft and watched a flight test.
The AAM group includes members from leading government agencies concerned with making and keeping this segment of aviation successful, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Department of Transportation (DOT), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Department of Defense (DOD) and other agencies.
AAM group visits Archer Aviation. (Image: Archer Aviation)
Gathering the views of Archer and other electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) developer executives should be an essential part of the AAM group’s information collection task. And while it’s great to see that the interagency group has every intention of promoting the AAM concept of air taxis, it would perhaps be better if the group also had access to representatives of manufacturers, developers, and those with UAS experience. It’s clear that we need to start by spreading the word, but also by including people in the group who have dedicated themselves to bringing these capabilities to market — that may make the process more efficient.
Along the way, it may also help to understand that the processes we have used in the past to get airframes like this into passenger carrying operations might not work well with this new industry. It’s understandable that it should take a lengthy period to assess, verify, qualify and certify such vehicles in the name of safety, but if companies run out of cash and fold in the interim — which is highly likely with this “start-up industry” — then shouldn’t we be looking for a better way to get these guys off the ground?
No one wants safety to be sacrificed, but could there be some way to streamline, speed up, or simplify the process without skipping essential steps — a way to get new technology into use before it’s obsolete, or a lack of start-up money dooms its progress? The forecast for the economy in the near future is in the billions of dollars. So, providing funding to improve the current processes does make sense. DOD has started to put serious effort into speeding up its acquisition process and has empowered the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to find quicker ways to bring commercial technologies into defense.
The processes used to bring new technologies into use are tried and proven, but they are lengthy. In defense, if our opposition can field things quicker than we do, they have an edge in strategy, tactics and a higher probability of winning in battle. These countries are using the same approaches in the commercial world too, and we need to be wary that they may also have a greater chance of winning the “economic war.”
Nevertheless, Archer in California and others such as Joby, also in California, and Liliam in Germany, plod on through varying stages of FAA and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification paths. An example of the effort that a company has been required to put into fulfilling the requirements of a certification agency is that of Lilium, which first applied for its Design Organization Approval (DOA) in 2017, is still churning through the qualification efforts and does not expect approval until 2025. Of course, the answer is “Don’t get on the certification ‘hamster-wheel’ unless you can stand the journey.” However, we do want these systems and vehicles to make it in order to overcome some of the traffic nightmare that we are living through in our major cities and to contribute to the growth in the economy.
Meanwhile, the great hope (even expectation) of the “flying car” is being kept alive by Doroni in Miami with its two seat H1 eVTOL. Having largely burnt through its $3.6 million StartEngine launch money, Doroni is looking for its second round of funding to build more prototypes and join the certification race. However, other single seat eVTOL flying cars have taken the easier route to certify under the FAA Ultralight category.
Doroni H1 prototype. (Image: Doroni)
The H1 has semi-autonomous capability, which Doroni claims will make its eVTOL easy to fly, and allow general sales to any car driver. With air bags, an aerodynamic fuselage — which generates lift — 10 independent propulsion systems (four double prop ducted fans and two forward thrust props), an airframe that can behave as a parachute and “dissipate energy” in case of a crash, and landing gear, the H1 also has multiple independent batteries — all aimed at safety, which will help make it through certification verification. So, if you happen to have the $250,000 proposed sale price and are willing to wait on the completion of FAA certification, you could own your own “flying car.”
Doroni just announced that they have already made 50 test flights within their manufacturing facility along that test and qualification road.
Meanwhile, Ryse Aerotech in Ohio, recently demonstrated a manned test flight of its single seat Recon eVTOL — billed as an aid to farmers, with a top speed around 58 mph, a range of about 25 miles and with the right FAA clearance it could even reach an altitude of 700 ft — an airborne ATV for inspecting crops and the like.
Recon manned test flight in June 2023. (Image: Ryse Aerotech)
The path to market that Ryse has selected, however, should see more vehicles in earlier use than Doroni’s H1. All you may need is a driver’s license to take off in a Recon because it’s qualified as an Ultralight craft — just buy and fly. Beware, you cannot fly anywhere near an airport or after dark. FAA has restrictions on Ultralight craft.
So, progress on the semi-autonomous “flying-car” front and a plea to consider the economic benefits and to look to how to improve the efficiency of the existing certification process — not a request to cut corners, rather a request to speed up the processes and save this start-up industry before it goes broke.
