The Transportation Industry is going through a paradigm shift with the advent of the Urban Air Transportation. Fast forwarding to a future of on-demand Flying Vehicles or the Autonomous Vehicles which are revolutionising the vision of Futuristic cars a dream come true.
The automakers and aviation companies have announced their successful testing of their propulsion system for its single or multi-passenger “electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL).” Airbus has designed a prototype to build an end-to-end flight demonstrator of the Craft or CityAirbus concept called ‘Pop Up’ a hybrid car for both land and air transportation. However, the crafts will not be autonomous in the beginning. They will be operated manually for the public to get comfortable with the flying taxis before sending them on self-flying routes.
Similarly, Uber has also outlined its concept for the autonomous vehicles and on-demand flight system called ‘Elevate.’ However, the plan depends on the development of the eVTOLs along with the Urban Air Infrastructure for making their flying cab hailing as smooth as a regular car. Uber has been partnering with NASA and FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) taking it from being a ‘concept of notional to making it concrete.’
Dubai’s much-hyped Autonomous Aerial Taxi (AAT) or Self-flying taxi service has made a wave in taking to the sky globally at the World Government Summit early this year. Dubai city’s Road and Transport Authority (RTA) signed up a deal with Volocopter, German Aviation company who will provide the aircraft for this project.
This is just the beginning for flying taxis, with companies like Aeromobil, Airbus, Mercedes, and others rolling out their projects independently. However, Dubai is ahead of the game with the city being the test-bed to fly the prototypes like Uber’s Flying car initiative.
With the rapid burgeoning of Flying cars and Autonomous vehicles, it opens up for many challenges to be addressed by the Government Regulation despite opening up for significant possibilities. The flying vehicles cannot traverse randomly or without a defined pathway. It can create unforeseen problems and risks.
There must be a distinct pathway for the Aerial Transportation for the ‘Land Air Vehicles (LAV). Hence, the need to form a new regulatory authority called ‘Land Air Transportation Authority’ (LATA) becomes crucial. The LATA will be responsible for defining the new set of rules & regulations for ‘Land Air Traffic.’ The LAT regulation can also include authorities from Road Monitoring, Traffic Management (Land & Air), Aerial Pathways, Takeoffs & Landing, Aviation, etc.
The LATA will be the sole authority to define and design the various aspects of building centralized infrastructure base such as landing pads, Charging points, Sensor-based radars, Aerial Pathways, Passive Acoustic detection tracking systems, Traffic Separation Rules, Collision Avoidance systems to be incorporated in the vehicles, Surface Movement Radars (SMRs) and Surface Movement Guidance and Control Systems (SMGCS), etc. The cars can be guided over the pre-defined pathways and monitored through the phased array low power radars.
To summarise, these controls may sound too superfluous for a simple form of transportation, but there could be severe risks ahead if these factors are not considered and thought through right here and now for building the ‘Aerial Pathways.’
