Flying robotaksi easier to do than unmanned vehicles

Unmanned flying cars are easier to design than unmanned cars for road traffic. In principle, this is a logical and understandable idea, just few people thought about it, says Carl Dietrich (Carl Dietrich), executive director of the company Terrafugia , which is engaged in the production of flying cars.

At the conference, which was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Karl Dietrich made a report and promised that every citizen will be able to buy an unmanned vehicle with vertical takeoff and landing within a decade.

Terrafugia is developing a TF-X robotic flying vehicle. Already, it is clear that to create it requires less sophisticated technology than that used by Google for unmanned vehicles.
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In the air, you do not need to recognize road signs and react to them. There is no need to monitor the surrounding situation with dozens of vehicles moving around and pedestrians who are capable of unpredictable actions. There are no pedestrians in the air at all.

A computer-controlled flying car should only calculate the trajectory in 3D airspace (which is simpler than plotting a route along the roads on the ground), take off correctly and choose the right landing site. These are fairly simple tasks, says Dietrich. After all, autopilots have been used in air transport since the 80s, and the first automatic landing system appeared in 1979.

Thus, technically TF-X will be easier than car robots from Google, Honda, Mercedes and other manufacturers who are now actively working in this direction.

The main problem of a flying car is laws. It is necessary to allow people without air traffic management skills to own flying cars. If the relevant laws are adopted, then the TF-X model can become very popular. A vertical aircraft taking off and landing can fly 800 km in one gas station, carrying up to four passengers.



The first Transition model cannot fly without a person, but this device will enter the market in two or three years, and now it is undergoing flight tests. By the way, about 100 people have already pre-ordered this car for $ 279 thousand. Unfortunately, it does not have screws for vertical takeoff, like the TF-X, so you can only land the car at the airport.