FollowA thought might have struck many of us when we are caught up in heavy traffic that when the space above us is completely free why are we not utilizing it and making it useful for personal transportation. This thought gave rise to a project which aims at ending road congestion and making flying as easy as one drives a car. Many factors are needed to be considered if this project has to take its actual shape; one of the factors is energy consumption.
myCopterPersonal Flying Vehicle
The myCopter project tries to solve the problems and provide a suitable alternative to the rise in congestion on European roads. The project is basically divided into three parts namely: automation, human-machine interfaces and socio-economic environmental impact. According to Prof Heinrich Bülthoff, who gave this idea a proper structure, automation will find its way into concept cars gradually in order to get high safety on motorways and also at juctions. According to the calculated figure the flying vehicle with an electric counter-rotating rotor would be able to cover only 20km on battery power, which is a very small distance if you have miles to travel. The best example for it is the defense industry which is currently looking into flying “flocks”of UAV drones in formation.
Human-machine interfaces will be developed by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), which would ultimately be tested on the full-size and state-of-the-art Eucopter and and simulations which play an important role in the outcome of the project by Flight science and technology group at Liverpool’s university. As everything has its limitations this project too has certain problems which need to be tackled, like the aerospace legislation should be overhauled and the infrastructure available for parking at commuter’s workplaces should be changed without any sufficient training.
Source: ecofriend
