Government/Regulators

UAM By the Numbers in the EU

EASA Survey Says…

The European Aviation and Space Agency (EASA) surveyed EU citizens and found they, in general, had positive feelings about integrating urban air mobility into their lives.

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Diagram illustrating issues with unmanned aircraft systems.

UAS Deconfliction: A Strategic Plan

As millions of drones take to the air, how do we keep them from crashing?

The sky’s the limit, as the saying goes. Well, as it turns out, with millions of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) soon to take to the air for everything from small package delivery to surveillance and military actions, the sky is, in fact, limited. To prepare, aviation regulators around the globe are setting the stage —…

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downtown Los Angeles

U.S.A., Japan Gearing Up for Urban Air Mobility

News on the Fly: Los Angeles, Japan Airlines, Springfield, Ohio + AFWERX Lab

Angelenos have long had a love affair with their cars (take a gander at the 405 Freeway or Highway 101 any time, day or night). Imagine how they’re gonna feel about flying cars. That’s exactly what Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti did on 23 December 2020, when he announced the Urban Air Mobility Partnership between…

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crystals viewed under microsope

UAM Word of the Day/Year/Decade: Lithium

eVTOLs Need Batteries; Batteries Need Lithium

In the 1967 Oscar-winning film, The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman received a one-word piece of advice from his father’s friend at his high school graduation party: “Plastics. There’s a great future in plastics.” The film, were it to be remade today, might give a recent college grad a different one-word recommendation: Lithium. (If a few words of…

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tiger shark

eVTOL UAVs to Take on Jaws as Shark-Spotters

Think of it as a sort of "Shark Eye for the Beach Guys (and gals)."

It’s been 45 years since film director Steven Spielberg frightened beachgoers and boaters out of the oceans with his iconic, shark-fest thriller, Jaws. Now, scientists at the Benioff Ocean Initiative at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) may have found a way, using artificial intelligence (AI) and UAVs (drones), to spot sharks, track…

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flying car

NASA, Wisk, and Alaka’i Form UAM Partnership

As part of its Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) National Campaign (NC), NASA announced on November 16, 2020, that it had signed information exchange agreements with UAM vehicle developers, Mountain View, California-based Wisk and Hopkinton, Massachusetts-based Alaka’i Technologies. The agreements will facilitate the integration of eVTOLs and hybrid VTOLs into the U.S. national airspace. Working with…

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