8 ms·

Passenger drones are hovering over the horizon

56 points by martincmartin 10y ago

lujim 10y ago
I'm going to let the term "Passenger drone" slide, but I will feel a hint of aggravation when CNN reports on "Manned UAVs"
- wernercd 10y ago
  What's the aversions? A drone is a plane that is remote controlled or flies itself... a passenger drone or a manned uav would be a remote/self controlled airplane that has cargo: people. Not that people won't butcher the terminology (ATM Machine), but even at the worse, these shouldn't be to bad...
  - imglorp 10y ago
    How about autonomous multi-rotor? There's no assumption regarding the payload then.
  - dcgoss 10y ago
    (U)nmanned (A)erial (V)ehicle = UAV. A manned UAV would be a bit of an oxymoron.
    - chatmasta 10y ago
      Passengers != manned. They aren't operating the vehicle, they're cargo.
      - ams6110 10y ago
        Yes but UAVs are built to an overall lower standard of reliability and safety precisely because there are no people on board.
      - lujim 10y ago
        even if that is the definition of manned it still doesn't make sense. because the "U" in UAV stands for Unmanned not Unpiloted. However "Manned space flight" would still apply even if the astronaut was just ballast right? A trip to mars would be completely automated but you still wouldn't call it unmanned if a scientist was on board that did nothing but scientist stuff.
      - hueving 10y ago
        Which is exactly why 'manned UAV' makes no sense.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - nacs 10y ago
    UAV = Unmanned Aerial Vehicle "Manned Unmanned Aerial Vehicle" = nonsense
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > but I will feel a hint of aggravation when CNN reports on "Manned UAVs" Well, yeah, "manned UAVs" would just be wrong -- drone passengers are passengers, not crew, and "manned" refers to having a human crew. (Though I suppose a long-endurance drone with human maintenance crew might be properly considered "manned" despite being unpiloted. But, then, an Unpiloted Aerial Vehicle could have the same natural initialism as an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle...)
  - martincmartin 10y ago
    Also, the "U" stands for Unmanned. "Manned UAVs" is like the opposite of RAS Syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome
- sixothree 10y ago
  Just pretend the U stands for unpiloted.
  - lujim 10y ago
    The one in the article is actually piloted. It's just not that hard to fly. Once it's completely automated CNN will run a story about "Unmanned MUAV's"
projectramo 10y ago
To quote Marc Andreessen: They promised us flying cars and they gave us... flying cars.
Aelinsaar 10y ago
This is really the only way that "flying cars" could have ever worked, unless people were truly willing to embrace a future of mid-air collisions and raining debris.
- lujim 10y ago
  The people I encounter on my commute will find a way to mess this up.
  - Aelinsaar 10y ago
    I really wish that I didn't know what you meant, but since I almost died today when someone turned left across THREE lanes illegally... yeah you're right.
  - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
    "Whenever you make something idiot proof, God invents a better idiot."
michaelvoz 10y ago
Anecdotally related: I was recently at Golden Gate park, and one of my co-workers was flying a tiny drone a few hundred feet over us. The noise was very annoying. I hope that if this technology does ever become mainstream, we find a way to make it quieter. The noise pollution is astounding.
- phire 10y ago
  It's not like helicopters or planes are quiet either. Moving large volumes of air in the downwards direction creates noise.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
    It's also not like helicopters or planes typically hover over a park.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Helicopters and planes exist in relatively small numbers, and their movements are often modified to reduce the impact of their noise. A nitpick: almost all fixed-wing airplane noise comes from the engines, not the downward movement of air. Listen to a glider and a light powered airplane of similar mass for a good illustration. Helicopter noise is more complex.
    - phire 10y ago
      It wasn't until I moved into a house under the final approach (for the least commonly used runway) that I realised this is untrue. On a calm night with no wind, the wake turbulence makes a significant amount of nose that lasts for several min after the plane passes. Normally wind noise drowns it out, but due to the longer duration the total amount of noise is equal-to or greater than the engine noise.
  - milesokeefe 10y ago
    I've heard that the high pitch noise multi-rotors make is primarily from the motor ESCs, so those could potentially be made more quiet.
blakes 10y ago
As someone who has been into ultralight aircraft in the past, I think this is actually pretty cool. Ultralight flying has weight and speed requirements (as well as fuel) and no pilot's license necessary [1]. I believe that if one of these type of aircraft could get into the ultralight category, it would be a positive. I'd bet there would be fewer crashes/deaths in these drone type of aircraft than a conventional ultralight (which resemble anything from a hanglider or parachute with a propeller attached to an actual airplane). [1] https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/aviation-communities-and-interests/ultralights-and-ultralight-aircraft/getting-started-in-ultralight-flying/about-faa-part-103-for-ultralights https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/aviation-communities-and-interest...
6stringmerc 10y ago
IBIWISI @ Paris or Oshkosh airshow. I mean, not in person because I don't get to visit such places with my budget and schedule, but I'll watch the coverage closely. Until then, yay, another article about how promising technology is these days!
- FabHK 10y ago
  The Volocopter VC200 was displayed at the AERO Friedrichshafen 2016, just after its maiden (manned) flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC9YWvKX0lY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC9YWvKX0lY
  - 6stringmerc 10y ago
    Maiden flight is nice but like I said I'd like to see something proven to the point of being flown at a major international airshow - not just put on display with a video.
    - FabHK 10y ago
      Yeah, you've got a point there... And even that might not be enough: Remember the Icon A5 [1] (cool amphibian light sport plane) or the Terrafugia Transition [2] (flying car)? They've flown, been presented at Oshkosh, even partially certified - but will they ever really (wait for it...) take off? (BTW, though, the AERO is probably _the_ major European general aviation show.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICON_A5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICON_A5 [2] http://www.terrafugia.com/aircraft/transition http://www.terrafugia.com/aircraft/transition
sleepybrett 10y ago
The argument in the article's first paragraph seems to be using fly-by-wire tech drone-a-copters will be easier to fly than helicopters. Why can't we apply the same fly-by-wire techniques on a helicopter drive train? I mean I love my little racing quad just as much as anyone, but it's not like the three (or 5.. i also have a hexa) extra props/motors increase the dependability of the device. Lose one of those and it's a shitshow headed into the ground.
- lastbestmatt 10y ago
  Right, this doesn't make much sense. You can add fly-by-wire and autonomy to a helicopter as well (it's been done). The two come from different backgrounds, though: people are familiar with "drones" being relatively cheap and easy to fly. So scale it up and add a person, and now it's both easy-to-fly and accessible to your average commuter. Of course, this reasoning doesn't usually account for the cost of implementing all that safety and redundancy stuff that was previously just understood to be possible. Not to mention the cost of getting it FAA-certified when you're done.
  - dannycodes 10y ago
    On the other hand, having 12 rotors is already much better redundancy than a helicopter. Maybe they're onto something.
    - blakes 10y ago
      Ah, but don't forget that the rotors on a helicopter can be pitched (like wings). I'm not sure the rotors on this "drone" can do the same thing. A helicopter can land with the engine out by using it's rotors like a wing essentially. If these rotors are fixed, then essentially it becomes a falling brick.
      - FabHK 10y ago
        Ah, the dreaded 17-engine approach! :-) On the Volocopter, the 18 rotors are fixed pitch, but yeah, a couple of engine/rotor failures are no big deal. Beyond that, ballistic rescue parachute: autorotation is not an option.
jcfrei 10y ago
I couldn't find any info on flight times. I'm guessing anything up to 15 minutes?
- martincmartin 10y ago
  It's in TFA, 20 - 30 minutes, although they mention one with a hybrid engine that can use gasoline, presumably to recharge the battery.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ourmandave 10y ago
So fast forward 10+ years, what does this look like? Can I get a drone Uber to pick me up? Where exactly? Are there helipads everywhere there use to be a bus stop? For private owners, do they build a landing area in their backyard or rooftop? Or do you drive out to the airport? Does the paramedic-flying-themselves-to-the-accident know where to land the drone with 18 chopping blades (for stability and redundancy)?
- avn2109 10y ago
  >> "...chopping blades..." Presumably the drones' propulsion systems will have to be ducted fans for just this reason.
  - FabHK 10y ago
    The Volocopter has no ducts - same sophisticated tech as a helicopter: props are rotating a bit higher than your average human.
- coldcode 10y ago
  Flying cars can generate flying car crashes which seem inherently dangerous. A drone is nothing more than a flying car without a driver. If it breaks down and kills the passenger (and anyone unlucky beneath) who is responsible?
  - ourmandave 10y ago
    That's all I can think about when I watch SF movies with flying cars (e.g. Fifth Element, Star Wars, Natl Lampoon's Vacation). Where do you park? What happens if the battery dies? Why is there so much cartoon physics?
    - nine_k 10y ago
      1) You park in a garage or a parking lot, as you would a normal car of comparable size. 2) There's no "the battery", there are several cells, each capable of giving you enough juice for a landing if all others die. OTOH catastrophic failures are of course possible, as with cars. A parachute pushed out by a small charge can help if the altitude allows. 3) Because cartoon physics look good (and funny) on screen. I suppose the rest of Fifth Element does not look boringly realistic to you either.
loeg 10y ago
Thinking a bit bigger — when do we stop involving pilots in commercial aircraft flight? Much like trucking, flight is something computers can do very well.
- astazangasta 10y ago
  The fact that we can't reliably land planes automatically even though we can use beacons and we have fixed targets with tons of observable data is one of my main sources of skepticism about driverless cars.
  - twinkletwinkle 10y ago
    I have nothing to base this on, I always thought we could do that. The airlines just don't, because (most) passengers won't get on a plane if they don't get to hear that Air Force baritone come over the intercom and say "This is your captain speaking...". I didn't think it was a matter of tech but of psychology.
- dputtick 10y ago
  Currently, pilots have the primary function of monitoring the automation, and exercising critical thinking when things go wrong. This can be everything from flight computers misbehaving, dealing with weather, avoiding turbulence, troubleshooting an engine fault indicator. Their secondary function of flying the plane is more or less because they have to be there anyway, and for almost all larger aircraft the autopilot takes care of everything except for maybe the first few minutes and the last ~1 to 10 minutes of the flight (although this varies based on airline, aircraft type, and individual pilot preference). Autoland does exist (google cat. 3 ILS), but it hasn't really been refined to perfection because the pilots aren't going anywhere as of yet and they are quite excellent at performing the last 200 ft of the landing sequence (once the runway is in sight in low vis conditions). Your average airline flight, in daylight and good weather, can really be quite a simple exercise. The outliers, with equipment out of service, bad weather, icing, or really serious things like an engine failure, are extremely cognitively demanding in a very "human" way and certainly outside the capabilities of perhaps anything short of an artificial general intelligence. I think the future of computing in the cockpit for the foreseeable future involves collaborating with humans to help them navigate these challenging situations and focus on higher level problem solving, rather than replacing them.
ldom66 10y ago
How would this be able to land in the event of complete electrical failure? A helicopter is able to glide by twisting the rotor blades but this would just fall like a brick. I would be really scared to be in that.
- altano 10y ago
  Parachute?
  - ldom66 10y ago
    Doesn't a parachute need some free fall before being completely deployed? Plus there would be no way of gliding somewhere safe to land.
    - nradov 10y ago
      A small rocket can be used to deploy the parachute from low altitude. This is already in use on some light aircraft today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Recovery_Systems#Components https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Recovery_Systems#Com...
  - astazangasta 10y ago
    This is a vehicle that allegedly requires no training to operate and might even be autonomous; parachuting requires a shit-load of training.
    - FabHK 10y ago
      The ballistic rescue parachute is attached to the top of the drone. It's basically just a big red button that you have to press to deploy (and even that could maybe be automated).
  - olh 10y ago
    Powerless plane makes parachute landing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQyrPVIIQdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQyrPVIIQdE
Shivetya 10y ago
would make a cool battlefield ambulance if it could fly itself, just needs a bit more endurance. Curious, at what speed the rotors must go so that if you kill all power it doesn't plummet. How high would that fail altitude actually be
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
Something about dying in a crashed aircraft that was piloted by someone in a comfy seat 2000 miles away bothers me.
- ourmandave 10y ago
  Especially when that someone was an evil hacker because you didn't have enough bitcoins to get the controls unencrypted.
  - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    That should be a writing prompt!
huuu 10y ago
I don't think this is going to be mainstream very soon because these multi rotors can only fly for a few minutes. Right now batteries are way too heavy. And combustion engines can't alter speed that quick.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  What of fuel cell vehicles or series hybrids? You'd still have electric motors, but with a more potent power source.
- FabHK 10y ago
  Yes, batteries don't have the energy density of petrol yet, but they're improving. Also, hybrids are an option, with a combustion engine (running at optimal speed throughout) driving a generator recharging a battery - best of both worlds, potentially.
advisedwang 10y ago
I'm very skeptical of their claims of better safety that regular helicopters. Thanks to "autorotation" a helicopter can safely land in most situations even with complete power failure. The claims of safety of this craft seems to derive from single rotor failure resilience and ease of use, which doesn't impress me much.
- lujim 10y ago
  It probably falls into the realm of safer than a piston powered R-22, but less safe that a multi engine turbine powered helicopter.
- jerf 10y ago
  It seems to me that it depends on how it's wired up internally, where we can't see it. If all the drone controls are wired to one battery controlled by one computer, yeah, there's a lot of single-points-of-failure there, and the result is scarier than a helicopter to me. On the other hand, if it was basically a whole bunch of independent drones with pretty much their own electronics (I'll permit for convenience a single charging bus), and communicating with active-acknowledgement protocols such that each drone assumes the others are failed unless there is active assurance they are on and working, the whole ensemble can come out much safer than a helicopter. In theory you could get to the point where it doesn't just have no single point of failure, but even no dual- or treble-points of failure either. Depends on the details.
  - FabHK 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure they've thought of avoiding single points of failures. It's my understanding that there are multiple busses, and I assume that failure of a single battery only shortens the range, not leading to a catastrophic failure. The 18-rotor Volocopter can have several rotors fail with no problem before the ballistic rescue parachute becomes necessary.
- FabHK 10y ago
  The volocopter can still fly and land safely when one or more engines or rotors fail (up to 6 out of the 18, provided they're not all adjacent, if I'm not mistaken). In case of a complete power failure, a light-weight ballistic rescue parachute will let the whole thing glide to earth. There might be some altitude where the parachute doesn't have enough time to deploy, but that's really the same problem as with a helicopter (where autorotation is only possible from certain altitude/airspeed combinations) - so you have to avoid staying in that critical region. I think it is premature to make pronouncements on the safety - piston engines don't really have a great safety record. Turbines are amazingly reliable of course, but the entire helicopter ensemble still fails occasionally. Electric motors and batteries (plus maybe petrol powered generators, or fuel cells) are just an entirely different technology stack, whose reliability remains to be seen. I'm optimistic, though.
Animats 10y ago
The Ehang 184 [1][2][3] looks like it's going to be the first usable flying car. It's all-electric, with four sets of two contra-rotating props. This provides redundancy if a motor fails. They showed a prototype as a static display at CES last January. This is from the people who make the Ghost drone. They're in Guangzhou. The range will probably be short, but I expect that executives in Beijing will be using these to get around the traffic jams in a few years. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs4nDFgVx2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs4nDFgVx2o [2] http://www.ehang.com/ehang184 http://www.ehang.com/ehang184 [3] https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/06/the-ehang-184-is-a-human-sized-drone-taking-off-at-ces/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/06/the-ehang-184-is-a-human-s...
- pj_mukh 10y ago
  Except it can't drive? I love this tech! If the FAA allowed for cheap urban short haul using these, it would be amazing. Its external operations (the need for helipads, maintenance etc.) would basically be like a helicopter though.
- FabHK 10y ago
  Are you sure? Where are they in the production, flight testing, certification process? Have they even built a prototype (not a life-size plastic model to display at an airshow, but an actual prototype?) The Volocopter VC200 [1] has had unmanned and manned flight tests [2], and they're actually working on the (laborious) certification process. [1] http://volocopter.com/index.php/en/ http://volocopter.com/index.php/en/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OazFiIhwAEs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OazFiIhwAEs
- FabHK 10y ago
  BTW, irrespective of whether Ehang or Volocopter is first: range/endurance for the purely electric ones is going to be a sore point until batteries improve significantly, but yes, I could also imagine the rich zipping around (and to/from the airport) in these in metropolises such as Beijing, Shanghai, Jakarta, Sao Paolo, etc. Can't wait for better batteries (or nice and light hybrid technology)!

56 points by martincmartin 10y ago

lujim 10y ago

I'm going to let the term "Passenger drone" slide, but I will feel a hint of aggravation when CNN reports on "Manned UAVs"

wernercd 10y ago
What's the aversions? A drone is a plane that is remote controlled or flies itself... a passenger drone or a manned uav would be a remote/self controlled airplane that has cargo: people. Not that people won't butcher the terminology (ATM Machine), but even at the worse, these shouldn't be to bad...
- imglorp 10y ago
  How about autonomous multi-rotor? There's no assumption regarding the payload then.
- dcgoss 10y ago
  (U)nmanned (A)erial (V)ehicle = UAV. A manned UAV would be a bit of an oxymoron.
  - chatmasta 10y ago
    Passengers != manned. They aren't operating the vehicle, they're cargo.
    - ams6110 10y ago
      Yes but UAVs are built to an overall lower standard of reliability and safety precisely because there are no people on board.
    - lujim 10y ago
      even if that is the definition of manned it still doesn't make sense. because the "U" in UAV stands for Unmanned not Unpiloted. However "Manned space flight" would still apply even if the astronaut was just ballast right? A trip to mars would be completely automated but you still wouldn't call it unmanned if a scientist was on board that did nothing but scientist stuff.
    - hueving 10y ago
      Which is exactly why 'manned UAV' makes no sense.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- nacs 10y ago
  UAV = Unmanned Aerial Vehicle "Manned Unmanned Aerial Vehicle" = nonsense
dragonwriter 10y ago
> but I will feel a hint of aggravation when CNN reports on "Manned UAVs" Well, yeah, "manned UAVs" would just be wrong -- drone passengers are passengers, not crew, and "manned" refers to having a human crew. (Though I suppose a long-endurance drone with human maintenance crew might be properly considered "manned" despite being unpiloted. But, then, an Unpiloted Aerial Vehicle could have the same natural initialism as an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle...)
- martincmartin 10y ago
  Also, the "U" stands for Unmanned. "Manned UAVs" is like the opposite of RAS Syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome
sixothree 10y ago
Just pretend the U stands for unpiloted.
- lujim 10y ago
  The one in the article is actually piloted. It's just not that hard to fly. Once it's completely automated CNN will run a story about "Unmanned MUAV's"

projectramo 10y ago

To quote Marc Andreessen: They promised us flying cars and they gave us... flying cars.

Aelinsaar 10y ago

This is really the only way that "flying cars" could have ever worked, unless people were truly willing to embrace a future of mid-air collisions and raining debris.

lujim 10y ago
The people I encounter on my commute will find a way to mess this up.
- Aelinsaar 10y ago
  I really wish that I didn't know what you meant, but since I almost died today when someone turned left across THREE lanes illegally... yeah you're right.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  "Whenever you make something idiot proof, God invents a better idiot."

michaelvoz 10y ago

Anecdotally related: I was recently at Golden Gate park, and one of my co-workers was flying a tiny drone a few hundred feet over us. The noise was very annoying. I hope that if this technology does ever become mainstream, we find a way to make it quieter. The noise pollution is astounding.

phire 10y ago
It's not like helicopters or planes are quiet either. Moving large volumes of air in the downwards direction creates noise.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  It's also not like helicopters or planes typically hover over a park.
- mikeash 10y ago
  Helicopters and planes exist in relatively small numbers, and their movements are often modified to reduce the impact of their noise. A nitpick: almost all fixed-wing airplane noise comes from the engines, not the downward movement of air. Listen to a glider and a light powered airplane of similar mass for a good illustration. Helicopter noise is more complex.
  - phire 10y ago
    It wasn't until I moved into a house under the final approach (for the least commonly used runway) that I realised this is untrue. On a calm night with no wind, the wake turbulence makes a significant amount of nose that lasts for several min after the plane passes. Normally wind noise drowns it out, but due to the longer duration the total amount of noise is equal-to or greater than the engine noise.
- milesokeefe 10y ago
  I've heard that the high pitch noise multi-rotors make is primarily from the motor ESCs, so those could potentially be made more quiet.

blakes 10y ago

As someone who has been into ultralight aircraft in the past, I think this is actually pretty cool. Ultralight flying has weight and speed requirements (as well as fuel) and no pilot's license necessary [1]. I believe that if one of these type of aircraft could get into the ultralight category, it would be a positive. I'd bet there would be fewer crashes/deaths in these drone type of aircraft than a conventional ultralight (which resemble anything from a hanglider or parachute with a propeller attached to an actual airplane). [1] https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/aviation-communities-and-interests/ultralights-and-ultralight-aircraft/getting-started-in-ultralight-flying/about-faa-part-103-for-ultralights https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/aviation-communities-and-interest...

6stringmerc 10y ago

IBIWISI @ Paris or Oshkosh airshow. I mean, not in person because I don't get to visit such places with my budget and schedule, but I'll watch the coverage closely. Until then, yay, another article about how promising technology is these days!

FabHK 10y ago
The Volocopter VC200 was displayed at the AERO Friedrichshafen 2016, just after its maiden (manned) flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC9YWvKX0lY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC9YWvKX0lY
- 6stringmerc 10y ago
  Maiden flight is nice but like I said I'd like to see something proven to the point of being flown at a major international airshow - not just put on display with a video.
  - FabHK 10y ago
    Yeah, you've got a point there... And even that might not be enough: Remember the Icon A5 [1] (cool amphibian light sport plane) or the Terrafugia Transition [2] (flying car)? They've flown, been presented at Oshkosh, even partially certified - but will they ever really (wait for it...) take off? (BTW, though, the AERO is probably _the_ major European general aviation show.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICON_A5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICON_A5 [2] http://www.terrafugia.com/aircraft/transition http://www.terrafugia.com/aircraft/transition

sleepybrett 10y ago

The argument in the article's first paragraph seems to be using fly-by-wire tech drone-a-copters will be easier to fly than helicopters. Why can't we apply the same fly-by-wire techniques on a helicopter drive train? I mean I love my little racing quad just as much as anyone, but it's not like the three (or 5.. i also have a hexa) extra props/motors increase the dependability of the device. Lose one of those and it's a shitshow headed into the ground.

lastbestmatt 10y ago
Right, this doesn't make much sense. You can add fly-by-wire and autonomy to a helicopter as well (it's been done). The two come from different backgrounds, though: people are familiar with "drones" being relatively cheap and easy to fly. So scale it up and add a person, and now it's both easy-to-fly and accessible to your average commuter. Of course, this reasoning doesn't usually account for the cost of implementing all that safety and redundancy stuff that was previously just understood to be possible. Not to mention the cost of getting it FAA-certified when you're done.
- dannycodes 10y ago
  On the other hand, having 12 rotors is already much better redundancy than a helicopter. Maybe they're onto something.
  - blakes 10y ago
    Ah, but don't forget that the rotors on a helicopter can be pitched (like wings). I'm not sure the rotors on this "drone" can do the same thing. A helicopter can land with the engine out by using it's rotors like a wing essentially. If these rotors are fixed, then essentially it becomes a falling brick.
    - FabHK 10y ago
      Ah, the dreaded 17-engine approach! :-) On the Volocopter, the 18 rotors are fixed pitch, but yeah, a couple of engine/rotor failures are no big deal. Beyond that, ballistic rescue parachute: autorotation is not an option.

jcfrei 10y ago

I couldn't find any info on flight times. I'm guessing anything up to 15 minutes?

martincmartin 10y ago
It's in TFA, 20 - 30 minutes, although they mention one with a hybrid engine that can use gasoline, presumably to recharge the battery.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ourmandave 10y ago

So fast forward 10+ years, what does this look like? Can I get a drone Uber to pick me up? Where exactly? Are there helipads everywhere there use to be a bus stop? For private owners, do they build a landing area in their backyard or rooftop? Or do you drive out to the airport? Does the paramedic-flying-themselves-to-the-accident know where to land the drone with 18 chopping blades (for stability and redundancy)?

avn2109 10y ago
>> "...chopping blades..." Presumably the drones' propulsion systems will have to be ducted fans for just this reason.
- FabHK 10y ago
  The Volocopter has no ducts - same sophisticated tech as a helicopter: props are rotating a bit higher than your average human.
coldcode 10y ago
Flying cars can generate flying car crashes which seem inherently dangerous. A drone is nothing more than a flying car without a driver. If it breaks down and kills the passenger (and anyone unlucky beneath) who is responsible?
- ourmandave 10y ago
  That's all I can think about when I watch SF movies with flying cars (e.g. Fifth Element, Star Wars, Natl Lampoon's Vacation). Where do you park? What happens if the battery dies? Why is there so much cartoon physics?
  - nine_k 10y ago
    1) You park in a garage or a parking lot, as you would a normal car of comparable size. 2) There's no "the battery", there are several cells, each capable of giving you enough juice for a landing if all others die. OTOH catastrophic failures are of course possible, as with cars. A parachute pushed out by a small charge can help if the altitude allows. 3) Because cartoon physics look good (and funny) on screen. I suppose the rest of Fifth Element does not look boringly realistic to you either.

loeg 10y ago

Thinking a bit bigger — when do we stop involving pilots in commercial aircraft flight? Much like trucking, flight is something computers can do very well.

astazangasta 10y ago
The fact that we can't reliably land planes automatically even though we can use beacons and we have fixed targets with tons of observable data is one of my main sources of skepticism about driverless cars.
- twinkletwinkle 10y ago
  I have nothing to base this on, I always thought we could do that. The airlines just don't, because (most) passengers won't get on a plane if they don't get to hear that Air Force baritone come over the intercom and say "This is your captain speaking...". I didn't think it was a matter of tech but of psychology.
dputtick 10y ago
Currently, pilots have the primary function of monitoring the automation, and exercising critical thinking when things go wrong. This can be everything from flight computers misbehaving, dealing with weather, avoiding turbulence, troubleshooting an engine fault indicator. Their secondary function of flying the plane is more or less because they have to be there anyway, and for almost all larger aircraft the autopilot takes care of everything except for maybe the first few minutes and the last ~1 to 10 minutes of the flight (although this varies based on airline, aircraft type, and individual pilot preference). Autoland does exist (google cat. 3 ILS), but it hasn't really been refined to perfection because the pilots aren't going anywhere as of yet and they are quite excellent at performing the last 200 ft of the landing sequence (once the runway is in sight in low vis conditions). Your average airline flight, in daylight and good weather, can really be quite a simple exercise. The outliers, with equipment out of service, bad weather, icing, or really serious things like an engine failure, are extremely cognitively demanding in a very "human" way and certainly outside the capabilities of perhaps anything short of an artificial general intelligence. I think the future of computing in the cockpit for the foreseeable future involves collaborating with humans to help them navigate these challenging situations and focus on higher level problem solving, rather than replacing them.

ldom66 10y ago

How would this be able to land in the event of complete electrical failure? A helicopter is able to glide by twisting the rotor blades but this would just fall like a brick. I would be really scared to be in that.

altano 10y ago
Parachute?
- ldom66 10y ago
  Doesn't a parachute need some free fall before being completely deployed? Plus there would be no way of gliding somewhere safe to land.
  - nradov 10y ago
    A small rocket can be used to deploy the parachute from low altitude. This is already in use on some light aircraft today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Recovery_Systems#Components https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Recovery_Systems#Com...
- astazangasta 10y ago
  This is a vehicle that allegedly requires no training to operate and might even be autonomous; parachuting requires a shit-load of training.
  - FabHK 10y ago
    The ballistic rescue parachute is attached to the top of the drone. It's basically just a big red button that you have to press to deploy (and even that could maybe be automated).
- olh 10y ago
  Powerless plane makes parachute landing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQyrPVIIQdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQyrPVIIQdE

Shivetya 10y ago

would make a cool battlefield ambulance if it could fly itself, just needs a bit more endurance. Curious, at what speed the rotors must go so that if you kill all power it doesn't plummet. How high would that fail altitude actually be

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

Something about dying in a crashed aircraft that was piloted by someone in a comfy seat 2000 miles away bothers me.

ourmandave 10y ago
Especially when that someone was an evil hacker because you didn't have enough bitcoins to get the controls unencrypted.
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  That should be a writing prompt!

huuu 10y ago

I don't think this is going to be mainstream very soon because these multi rotors can only fly for a few minutes. Right now batteries are way too heavy. And combustion engines can't alter speed that quick.

stcredzero 10y ago
What of fuel cell vehicles or series hybrids? You'd still have electric motors, but with a more potent power source.
FabHK 10y ago
Yes, batteries don't have the energy density of petrol yet, but they're improving. Also, hybrids are an option, with a combustion engine (running at optimal speed throughout) driving a generator recharging a battery - best of both worlds, potentially.

advisedwang 10y ago

I'm very skeptical of their claims of better safety that regular helicopters. Thanks to "autorotation" a helicopter can safely land in most situations even with complete power failure. The claims of safety of this craft seems to derive from single rotor failure resilience and ease of use, which doesn't impress me much.

lujim 10y ago
It probably falls into the realm of safer than a piston powered R-22, but less safe that a multi engine turbine powered helicopter.
jerf 10y ago
It seems to me that it depends on how it's wired up internally, where we can't see it. If all the drone controls are wired to one battery controlled by one computer, yeah, there's a lot of single-points-of-failure there, and the result is scarier than a helicopter to me. On the other hand, if it was basically a whole bunch of independent drones with pretty much their own electronics (I'll permit for convenience a single charging bus), and communicating with active-acknowledgement protocols such that each drone assumes the others are failed unless there is active assurance they are on and working, the whole ensemble can come out much safer than a helicopter. In theory you could get to the point where it doesn't just have no single point of failure, but even no dual- or treble-points of failure either. Depends on the details.
- FabHK 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure they've thought of avoiding single points of failures. It's my understanding that there are multiple busses, and I assume that failure of a single battery only shortens the range, not leading to a catastrophic failure. The 18-rotor Volocopter can have several rotors fail with no problem before the ballistic rescue parachute becomes necessary.
FabHK 10y ago
The volocopter can still fly and land safely when one or more engines or rotors fail (up to 6 out of the 18, provided they're not all adjacent, if I'm not mistaken). In case of a complete power failure, a light-weight ballistic rescue parachute will let the whole thing glide to earth. There might be some altitude where the parachute doesn't have enough time to deploy, but that's really the same problem as with a helicopter (where autorotation is only possible from certain altitude/airspeed combinations) - so you have to avoid staying in that critical region. I think it is premature to make pronouncements on the safety - piston engines don't really have a great safety record. Turbines are amazingly reliable of course, but the entire helicopter ensemble still fails occasionally. Electric motors and batteries (plus maybe petrol powered generators, or fuel cells) are just an entirely different technology stack, whose reliability remains to be seen. I'm optimistic, though.

Animats 10y ago

The Ehang 184 [1][2][3] looks like it's going to be the first usable flying car. It's all-electric, with four sets of two contra-rotating props. This provides redundancy if a motor fails. They showed a prototype as a static display at CES last January. This is from the people who make the Ghost drone. They're in Guangzhou. The range will probably be short, but I expect that executives in Beijing will be using these to get around the traffic jams in a few years. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs4nDFgVx2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs4nDFgVx2o [2] http://www.ehang.com/ehang184 http://www.ehang.com/ehang184 [3] https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/06/the-ehang-184-is-a-human-sized-drone-taking-off-at-ces/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/06/the-ehang-184-is-a-human-s...

pj_mukh 10y ago
Except it can't drive? I love this tech! If the FAA allowed for cheap urban short haul using these, it would be amazing. Its external operations (the need for helipads, maintenance etc.) would basically be like a helicopter though.
FabHK 10y ago
Are you sure? Where are they in the production, flight testing, certification process? Have they even built a prototype (not a life-size plastic model to display at an airshow, but an actual prototype?) The Volocopter VC200 [1] has had unmanned and manned flight tests [2], and they're actually working on the (laborious) certification process. [1] http://volocopter.com/index.php/en/ http://volocopter.com/index.php/en/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OazFiIhwAEs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OazFiIhwAEs
FabHK 10y ago
BTW, irrespective of whether Ehang or Volocopter is first: range/endurance for the purely electric ones is going to be a sore point until batteries improve significantly, but yes, I could also imagine the rich zipping around (and to/from the airport) in these in metropolises such as Beijing, Shanghai, Jakarta, Sao Paolo, etc. Can't wait for better batteries (or nice and light hybrid technology)!