The EU is testing robotic pilots of air taxis

The European Aviation Safety Agency has begun compiling a large-scale study to qualify the robotic pilots of future self-driving air taxis. Not only would the machines be tested from a safety point of view, but the issue of noise pollution and possible invasions of privacy would be discussed, among other things. The European Union’s aviation safety agency is developing a test to determine whether the artificial intelligence of future self-driving air taxis is safe. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has said that the taxi software of air taxis will be tested with the necessary rigor to ensure the safety not only of future passengers but also of those within range of vehicles.

EASA promises an extremely comprehensive range of air taxi tests, which is still in its infancy. They said they would not only look at the operation and maintenance of vehicles, but also look at the competency requirements for the people involved in their handling, as well as the noise pollution of taxis and the potential for privacy breaches. Air taxi development is one of the big hits today: an aircraft and car manufacturer as well as a haulage tech company competing with each other to turn as much slice as possible out of a market that doesn’t even exist. But there was also a starter set up specifically for air taxiing. There is, for example, the Airbus four-seater CityAirbusa, capable of taking off and landing vertically like a helicopter, which made its first test flight on the third of May.

Rolls-Royce announced last summer that it would be flying its own electric swivel-wing taxi in the early to mid-2021s, and that the air taxi-only startup would launch, and Lilium would launch in 2025, they showed last month. introduced their five-seater, fully electric machine, which they claim is a world leader in its genre. Lilium is already in talks with EASA to certify the safety of the machine. However, this air taxi is not self-driving and its wings don’t spin, a company spokesman argues that the light aircraft certification guidelines would apply to it. Elaine Whyte, a British drone expert at PwC and a former British Air Force safety and airworthiness engineer, said air taxis should be subject to the same safety standards as conventional aviation.

“This would likely be a significant barrier to entry and would require a different kind of skills from potential manufacturers who are new to the sector.”

Anita Sengupta, a co-founder of Airspace Experience Technologies startup in Los Angeles, who wants to promote “private air mobility,” says the issue of cyber security in the air needs to be addressed in the same way as on land. According to him, representatives of the air taxi industry would currently be given the green light by air traffic controllers, but in the future it is likely that a new system will need to be set up to regulate the industry, which will also have to include artificial intelligence and machine learning.