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.
The use of multirotor platforms for inspection, photogrammetry, and cartography operations is amply widespread. This is due to its versatility and the ability to perform vertical takeoff and landing. But these platforms have the disadvantage of having limited endurance. To overcome this challenge, the development of new designs of VTOL UAVs with horizontal flight capacity is currently booming.
VTOL UAVs are able to perform vertical takeoff and landing. Being perfectly able to take off and land in confined and inaccessible spaces. In the same way, these aircraft have the capability to perform horizontal flights with great endurance. It makes them suitable for performing mapping of areas covering hundreds of hectares in a single operation and reaching breakneck speeds in comparison with other kinds of drones.
VTOL UAVs platform designs
There are a wide variety of VTOL UAVs platforms, being common:
- Fixed-wing aircraft with forward and vertical rotors.
- Helicopters with retractable wings and forward propellers.
- Fixed wings with a vertical central and advanced rotor.
- Airplanes with in-flight wing and rotor tilting.
- Airplanes with in-flight propeller tilting.
- Airplanes with fixed rotor position and in-flight tilting.
Advantages of the integration of Veronte Autopilot in VTOL UAVs
Veronte Autopilot1x has already been successfully integrated into several VTOL UAV projects. Always adapting performance to the aircraft structure and end user needs. Some examples are Pelican aircraft (Dronetech), the HADA project (INTA).
Veronte Autopilot 1x is compatible with any VTOL configuration, whatever its structure. This is possible thanks to the versatility given by the configurable flight phases and control channels in the autopilot. This adaptability permits the system to perform fully autonomous flights, performing smooth and perfect transitions between horizontal and vertical flight. At the time, it makes possible to perform landings and takeoffs in both vertical and horizontal flight modes.
