Flying Car News, January 6
Expect a Flying Delorean in 2018!
This week’s top Flying Car News: A DeLorean flying car in 2018, autonomous quadrotor swarms, drone blood delivery, and more!
Flying cars will be a significant part of the future of transportation. Recent advancements in drone technology, electric VTOL aircraft, and autonomous systems have paved the way for an aerial transportation revolution. We created the Udacity Flying Car News Series, to ensure you stay up-to-date on all the latest Flying Car and Autonomous Aircraft stories!
Flying DeLorean
Delorean Aerospace announced that its flying car should fly by the end of 2018. A ⅓-size proof of concept of the personal commuter aircraft has already been tested. The final version should reach top speeds of up to 240 mph with a 120-mile range.
“DeLorean Aerospace picked up where its four-wheel parent left off, with a uniquely designed aircraft, the DR7. Although the name more or less gives it away, the company was founded in 2012 by Paul DeLorean, John DeLorean’s nephew. The mission was to develop a flying car.”
Quadrotor Swarms
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are testing autonomous quadrotor swarms by using visual inertial odometry to estimate their location and orientation in space.
“They’ve managed to teach a swarm of a dozen 250g quadrotors to fly in close formation, even though each one is using just one small camera and a simple IMU. This is probably the largest swarm of quadrotors which don’t rely on motion capture or GPS.”
A Docking Tower for Flying Cars
Richard’s Architecture + Design has designed a futuristic net-zero tower with numerous docking platforms for flying cars throughout the structure. It is exciting to see designers tackling the challenge of providing the infrastructure needed to support the future of urban air transport.
“The tower design, with its flying car docks, lush vertical forests, and cleantech accoutrements, provides us with a striking image of possible ‘smart city’ infrastructure: A fascinating meld of new, awe-inspiring technologies and the familiar greenery of the natural world.”
Drone Blood Delivery
Drone delivery company Matternet has submitted an application to approve a pilot program to test drone blood delivery from Stanford Blood Center to Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto. Silicon Valley could be the first place in the United States to allow the use of drones to deliver blood!
“The company’s video shows how blood or medical samples can be put into a box, and with a push of a button, flown autonomously by a drone. Stanford Blood Center is interested in the technology.”
An Autonomous UAV Helicopter
The Laurel Marine Survey Team and Flying Cam team successfully tested the use of their unmanned autonomous helicopter by using sonar to discover a ship sunk over 70 years ago in WWII.
“The Flying-Cam SARAH e 4.0 unmanned helicopter was operated in automatic mode from a ship and scanned an area of 40Ha in the Eastern Chinese sea.”
If you are interested in joining the pioneering generation of engineers who will build the smart transportation systems of the future, discover Udacity’s Flying Car Nanodegree Program today!
And stay tuned for more Flying Car News!
