MyCopter Concept Image via Jan Kranendonk
Personal aerial vehicles (PAV) are coming in droves. Does it make sense to let the general populous fly them all over the place? The European Commission (EC) wants to know.
A €4.3 million euro EC research project called "MyCopter" will focus helicopter-style PAVs. The project will feature automatically flying vehicles as they swarm around each other. The choice of helicopter based transport is due to the fact a runway is not needed, a vertical takeoff is possible from a parking space. Unlike the 2,500 feet need for the Terrafugia Airplane Car.
MyCopter will start with 10 quad-copter robots. A research team from the University of Liverpool, UK, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EDFL) will be going over sensing, collision avoidance, communications, and speed and reliability of other wireless services like GPS for autonomous flight. Dario Floreano's team from EPFL have created 360 degree vision and acoustic systems for the 10 bots in the study. When visibility is low Floreano said, "You can work out the speed and direction of approaching aircraft from the sound they make [via the acoustic sensors]."
A set of rules for autonomous flight will eventually come from this research project. Will all of us start fly flying around anytime soon though?
Eavesdropper
