Over the past five years there has been a groundswell of interest in electric- and hybrid electric-powered vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft for personal air vehicles, urban air taxis and even military missions. Electric VTOL obviates the need for mechanical power transmission, allowing new aircraft design freedom through approaches such as distributed electric propulsion. More than 225 electric VTOL designs are being developed today, with many now in advanced stages of flight testing. This presentation will detail the status of the electric VTOL revolution to date, and analyze trends for the future.

Jaunt’s vision extends beyond just building an aircraft for air taxi transportation. Urban air mobility is envisioned to spawn completely new aerospace and aviation industries. The future of UAM technology and the resulting unique transportation service it provides is already having an impact in terms of how many businesses are reshaping their future plans to accommodate how people will change the way they work, play, and shop, and even where they live and school their children.

Dr Sengupta will present how space-age tech coupled with the VC-funded innovation environment is enabling a revolution in sustainable aviation. She will review how autonomous VTOL air taxis are an enabling technology for urban transport in the smart cities of the future. She will also discuss the design and testing of the Mobi-One, an electric tilt-wing VTOL aircraft being developed at her new company, Airspace Experience Technologies (ASX). From the utilization of airspace, to infrastructure, to air traffic control, she will present on the urban air mobility revolution coming to a city near you.

Air taxis are closer than you think. Current transportation systems in megacities are reaching their limits due to growing populations. The logical response is to offer solutions in the third dimension: autonomous flying air-taxi operations. Receiving the commercial license for air taxi aircraft is a question of time, not possibility. Volocopter is focusing on shaping the necessary ecosystem around UAM, including air traffic management, city regulation and the take-off and landing infrastructure.

Commercial vertiports will be unique facilities requiring a different approach to operating than that of current airports. The high passenger turnover and variable capacity of eVTOL require specialized facilities and modes of operation not observed in the commercial aviation community. This paper will explore some of the challenges that future vertiport operators will need to address to ensure successful commercial operation.

One hundred thousand passenger drones could be in service by 2050. Driven by increasing urbanization and road congestion, and advances in technology such as electrical propulsion, we are living through the rise of the UAM industry, with opportunities but also challenges for established and new players. Key challenges include securing funding until the commercial market for UAM gets to a relevant size, identifying the correct aircraft design for relevant use cases, and developing ground infrastructure to support UAM, among many others. The industry is set to revolutionize urban transport – but how will the industry evolve while ensuring safe, affordable and efficient transport?

LIFT Aircraft's vision is to bring the thrill and joy of personal flight to everyone, in a way that improves flight safety statistics by one order of magnitude compared with legacy general aviation aircraft and procedures. Given that we aim to achieve this by paradigm-changing aircraft technologies flown by potentially inexperienced people holding no pilot's license, the question of 'how' is the first that pops up. We believe it is entirely possible, but it will take a holistic approach that addresses technical, procedural and social aspects. In our speech, we will introduce the most crucial milestones toward proving the concept; the ones achieved as well as the ones still ahead.

Due to the limitations of current battery technologies and the lack of infrastructure, eVTOLs can hardly be the transportation solution for the near future. This paper shows how good design practice can support bridging the gap between the current limitations and the future where eVTOLs are profitable to operate as a means of transportation. Through the example of Lift's Hexa aircraft design development, the paper describes the challenges and solutions of selling flight experience using current technological and infrastructural limitations. It contains case studies about developing user experience, graphical user interfaces and industrial design of an eVTOL aircraft designed for earliest market entry.

Electrochemical energy conversion systems based on batteries and hydrogen fuel cells have made tremendous progress in the last five years as an energy source for electric propulsion in aircraft applications. This presentation will provide an update on our validated work for a passenger aircraft (HY4) propulsion unit, including a fuel cell load data discussion on critical operating conditions.

Vertiport infrastructure will play a key role in the realization of UAM services. Skyports is the first organization to focus on delivering vertiports, securing passenger and cargo vertiports in congested cities worldwide. In October, Skyports – with Volocopter – will be showcasing the world’s first full-scale vertiport with flights in Singapore. Governments, city authorities, transport agencies and aviation authorities can engage with Skyports to be early adopters of this technology, and maximize the socio-economic and environmental benefits of UAM. This presentation provides an indicative roadmap for public authorities and industry partners, to enable the expansion of vertiports and UAM services.

In this presentation, using data from the first published market figures, we will discuss several key points surrounding the eVTOL mobility system. This will include sizing the market until 2035, predicting when vertical mobility will be a reality, as well as how fast the market will evolve and possible scenarios. The presentation will also discuss who has a right to win and who will lose.

The session will sketch an exciting picture of our future urban and suburban mobility. The main goal of this session is to support cities and regulators in preparing their responses and actions regarding these emerging, prominent services. The session also aims to show how drones will contribute toward integrating local communities and urban areas, enhancing the mobility network and answering real urban needs. Last-mile transport, passenger mobility, emergency use cases and traffic management will all be discussed, as well as issues on the governance of drone operations in the urban environment.

Based on his experience as a provider of UTM technology and his work within ICAO’s UAS Advisory Group, Marc will give an overview of the lessons learned and issues to overcome to make urban aerial mobility happen. UAM is regarded as a way of solving traffic congestion issues in large metropolitan areas. However, there are several stumbling blocks that need to be overcome before this can become a reality. Unifly has been involved in ambitious urban aerial mobility demonstrations, such as the SAFIR project in Belgium and the Volocopter demo in Singapore. We will share this experience.

The Flexcraft project combines the expertise of a consortium of companies/institutions (Almadesign, IST, SET, Embraer, Inegi) in the fields of industrial design, aeronautical/process engineering and aircraft manufacturing, to develop an on-demand urban air transportation solution. This presentation outlines the opportunities of hybrid electric propulsion and the impact on designing the passenger experience via innovative cabin layouts and modular fuselage configurations. The solution will be tested using a remotely operated scaled demonstrator, a full-size cabin mock-up and an innovative manufacturing process, bringing new opportunities for flying multimodal vehicles that promise considerable advantages in low-level urban airspaces, specifically related to noise, emissions, flexibility and operating cost.

The presentation will discuss the opportunity provided by urban electric aircraft transportation and will cover and make the case for eVTOL aircraft solutions for major cities, including the benefits of this transformation. It will explain how this space will evolve, the economics required, and the current regulatory challenges and likely solutions ahead, including air traffic integration. It will also highlight the private and commercial use opportunities, including the industry innovation present today, and where it will likely be in the five- and ten-year horizons. The session will conclude with Autonomous Flight’s role in creating a city-based air transportation system.

Urban air mobility (UAM) – mobility in the third dimension – is shaping the future of aerospace. In the race to bring eVTOL concepts to global markets and provide safe, secure and sustainable mobility services, aerospace designers and engineers are looking to many different technologies to address the associated challenges. From electrically powered propulsion to automated/autonomous flight, the realization of the UAM vision depends on the seamless integration of various technologies. We will provide unique insight, share best practices and discuss current challenges for testing and validating of key enabler technologies such as sensors (radar), wireless communication (4G, 5G, SatCom), flight navigation (GNSS) and the overall electronic system performance (EMI, EMC).

How feasible is the urban air mobility that everyone is talking about? It depends on how close we are to fully autonomous flight: not only is there a shortage of pilots for the future air taxi industry, but the human brain has not evolved for flying within heavy air traffic. So, the key enabler for the industry to come is autonomy. But it must be built to the highest standards of safety, and be more reliable than a human pilot. The talk describes the key steps and challenges on the way to achieving full autonomy.

The discovery of energy-dense crude oil and the invention of the jet engine enabled the globalization of aviation, making it fast, cheap and accessible to all. However, with the electrification of the automotive industry, new technologies have emerged, and aerospace may be the next to electrify. The rise of electrical propulsion will likely change the industry: giants from Airbus and Boeing to Rolls-Royce and General Electric will jostle for supremacy and may lose ground to new entrants. The trend spells a cleaner and potentially safer future for aviation – but how will companies adapt?

Automatic stabilization of eVTOL aerial vehicles is well understood and implemented, and attention is now switching to the next level of pilot automation: navigation and flight management. This new challenge can, and perhaps must, be achieved by a variety of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, but how to make them flight-worthy? This talk will address a number of questions posed by the proposed use of airborne AI: how is putting artificial intelligence into aerial vehicles useful? What are the challenges of doing this? What are the potential solutions? Can these solutions be realized?

We are increasingly receiving information about new projects concerning UAM that are about to break through. Today, there is still an opportunity to counteract the polarization – not only by the media – with a transparent discussion about UAM based on facts and requirements. In a globalized world, this is becoming more and more demanding, as rules are increasingly developed by international bodies, which often also have to take into account different political and economic goals. Nevertheless, it is still possible to create functioning systems through intelligent cooperation at the national level that can serve as an international role model.

Over the last five years, the collaboration between airports, CAVs and eVTOL operators has truly begun to take flight. What was once an abstract conversation about the future of mobility has quickly accelerated into a complex negotiation of interweaving, evolving business models, regulatory frameworks and regional infrastructural realities. This presentation synthesizes the current developments in getting current airport systems – both in the metropolitan and regional context – prepared for the future of integrated urban air mobility (UAM) and CAV systems, and posits a few urban and regional development scenarios to contemplate for next-generation global aviation systems.

The presentation will discuss ways to optimize emergency medical situations (EMS) systems by transporting medical staff via multicopters instead of road-going emergency vehicles. It will focus on EMS tactics, technological requirements, regulations, flight and operations safety and staff. The preliminary results of a feasibility study on model regions will be presented. ADAC Luftrettung's project partners are Volocopter, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt and the University of Munich.

Urban air mobility will probably see the light of day in the coming years as many companies are racing to develop the required technology. However, although the technology seems almost there, one of the biggest challenges is dealing with the energy requirements. Energy recharging for UAM will dictate the requirements for the infrastructure. Our capacity to integrate these energy systems and infrastructures in cities will be the key to enabling a real mode of mobility. This presentation will focus on the links between these needs and the system sizing, whether that be capacity, fleet or infrastructure.

Urban air mobility promises a number of relevant use cases in passenger transport, logistics and services. In view of the important role that sensors, actuators and intelligent controls play as enabling technologies for disruptive concepts and applications of drones, the European Technology Platform on Smart Systems Integration (EPoSS) is working on a European roadmap for smart systems for urban air mobility. This talk summarizes the work by showing technical, socio-economic and legal hurdles, identifying research needs, and highlighting technology transfer options. Issues of public acceptance and transportation planning related to urban air mobility are covered as well.