Flying cars: automating the skies means playing with our lives

href=”http://unicefstories.org/drones/malawi/”>Malawian government trials of autonomous drones along geofenced air corridors in relatively empty skies have passed without incident, suggesting that in sparsely populated terrains, flying car air corridors may have a future.

However, despite only improving emissions efficiency for long-distance travel, many companies are investing in the vision of flying cars as inner-city taxis and commuting vehicles. For example, Opener’s BlackFly, set to go on sale in 2019, has a range of just 25 miles. Given that the success of automated air corridors relies on GPS for geofencing, and on powerless aircraft to be aware of and avoid air corridors, flying car trials in busier skies may not have the same outcome.

Fail-safe designs
In these crowded environments, both accidents and mechanical failure could have catastrophic consequences. Risk of collision aside, operating standards must be exceptional, and safeguards must be built in to prevent loss of control in the event of mechanical problems.

The most promising and scalable flying car designs are winged, with multiple tiltable electric fans or rotors. These are reasonably safe when cruising as they can glide for substantial distances to safety if trouble hits. However, their vertical take off and landing requires sustained maximum thrust, placing significant strain on the motors at exactly the time when power failure is likely to have the most severe consequences.

Top notch health monitoring systems can predict developing issues by measuring irregular vibrations or temperatures, but this only mitigates risk. Genuine safety is only achieved by developing mechanical architecture that allows the vehicle to land safely when key components fail. Helicopters, for example, can land safely even in the event of power loss by angling the vehicle downwards and using the flow of air to keep the rotors spinning. Currently, there is no equivalent solution for flying cars except for the creation of large designated landing areas – hardly feasible in already crowded cities.

Of course, with companies putting serious money into making flying cars a reality, it is likely only a matter of time before solutions are developed and we see them in our skies in some form. But as the first deaths by driverless cars show, new technology is not always safe. We must be vigilant to ensure that increasing access to the skies does not play too much with our lives.

Jonathan Aitken is University Teacher in Robotics, University of Sheffield. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation.