Infrastructure of Urban Aerial Mobility

A challenge concerning the general infrastructure of the future and the integration of delivery drones into everyday traffic is that it is currently still in a theoretical phase and many different concepts are still to be evaluated and thoroughly tested. [1]

And as delivery drones will be part of regular urban traffic and manufacturers are planning for them to be fully autonomous, they require as many data points as possible to communicate with to ensure accurate positioning. An innovative approach to provide data points for the drone to communicate with is making use of idle cars, equipping them with antennas to transmit data. [2]

This concept is particularly interesting due to the fact that most cars are parked for 95% of the day, as the National Travel Survey concluded for personal cars and light vans in England over the last 25 years. [3]

Sources

[1] Lineberger, R. & Hussain, A. (2019, May 30). Infrastructure barriers to the elevated future of mobility: Are cities erady with the infrastructure needed for urban air transportation? In Deloitte. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/future-of-mobility/infrastructure-barriers-to-urban-air-mobility-with-VTOL.html

[2] Moran, O. et al. (2017, May 3). Hybrid Urban Navigation for Smart Cities. International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC). pp. 4-6.

[3] Nagler, E. (2021, July). Standing Still. RAC Foundation, London. pp. 5-8.