How Urban Air Mobility is getting ready for passengers: the NTU Singapore case
Singapore’s NTU flew its eVTOL prototypes in Germany. See what it means for urban air mobility, and why safety starts in flight control.
Embention, with more than 15 years of experience developing high performance systems for the autonomous vehicle industry in compliance with aeronautical certification standards DO178, DO254 and DO160, collaborates with leading VTOL manufacturing companies, such as the American company Aergility.
Aergility is a company that was founded in 2015 in Dunnellon, Florida (USA) and is active in the unmanned aerial vehicle industry with a focus on the development of Atlis, a long-range, high payload, autonomous, hybrid-electric-powered VTOL.
The Atlis has been designed with a unique configuration that combines a multicopter with a gyroplane. It performs take-off and landing vertically like a multicopter, thanks to the electrically driven lift of its 6 rotors. For forward flight, the fixed pitch rotors are self-powered, generating half of the lift. In this way, it’s patented “Managed Autorotation” technology allows it’s hybrid “Gyrodyne” architecture to achieve smooth flight from multi-rotor take-off and landing to autogyro-like forward flight, all thanks to the integration of Veronte Autopilot 4x, which enables advanced flight control for automatic stabilisation.
The main features of the Aergility VTOL Atlis are as follows:
- Patented “Managed Autorotation” technology
- Redundant Veronte Autopilot 4x flight control system
- 6 vertical rotors
- 1 microturbine and variable pitch propeller
- 3 redundant 400V lithium battery
- 500 lb. payload and over 400 miles of range.
- Combines the agility of a multi-rotor and the capability of a fixed wing
Veronte Autopilot 4x in VTOL Atlis
Veronte Autopilot 4x plays a critical role in Atlis, as in addition to offering the possibility of certification for its development in compliance with DO178C and DO254, its integration in VTOL provides safety and reliability in critical operations such as UAM. In addition, the system has also successfully passed environmental tests according to DO160 / MIL-STD-810 and has MTBF data, ATR (Acceptance Test Report) and other documentation for certification.
Veronte Autopilot enables advanced functions for fully autonomous flight, such as one-click mission, curve-based navigation or sense and avoid, as well as allowing simultaneous operations to configure and coordinate a network of multiple units so that they can be operated simultaneously, applicable for example in logistics tasks.
Aergility, which has recently acquired a new property in Florida to conduct flight tests and develop full-scale production, expects to start commercialisation of the Atlis in early 2025. In addition to the logistics operations for which the Atlis is specifically designed, this VTOL can carry out other types of operations such as humanitarian or military operations.
For more information on Aergility, please visit www.aergility.com
