Airbus autopilot "Flying Taxi" Vahana completed its first test flight

Airbus announced that its Vahana electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft completed its first test flight on January 31 local time. During the test, the full-size aircraft flew 5 meters off the ground and landed safely, but the automatic flight lasted only 53 seconds.

The first flight was completed at 8:52 am Pacific Time on January 31 at Pendleton UAS Range, Oregon. The first flight was carried out in the fully automated driving mode with a flight altitude of 5 meters and then safely landed. The next day, Vahana successfully completed its second test flight. Airbus said it wants to build an autonomous multi-rotor eVTOL fleet to make air commutes in a future-jammed city. Launched in 2016, the project was launched by Airbus subsidiary A³ in Silicon Valley. Since then, the company regularly releases new developments about the aircraft, including a user experience concept video.

In fact, Airbus planned to make its first flight, called Alpha One at the end of last year, but flight testing was delayed until the end of January as the company relocated the flight test center from California to Pendleton, Oregon. A³ previously said it will launch a production version of Alpha One in 2020. According to the information provided by A3, Alpha One's main specifications are as follows: 20.3 feet wide, 18.7 feet long, 9.2 feet high and 1642 pounds heavy. We are all looking forward to more RC Quadcopter Spares provided so the RC aircraft industry will be developed in a faster and healthier way.

"Our goal has always been to design and manufacture a single-seat electric vertical take-off and landing pilot to meet the growing demand for city travel," said Zach Lovering, Vahana Project Leader. "We have celebrated this huge achievement in aviation innovation, and in less than two years Vahana has completed a conceptual drawing on a napkin and successfully completed its first flight and our team is very grateful for the support from our A3 and Airbus families as well as our partners including MTSI and the Pendleton UAV system base. "

Vahana is a research and development project for the A3 Innovation Center at Airbus Outpost in Silicon Valley. The A3 Innovation Center is able to acquire unique talent and ideas, discover new opportunities for cooperation and execute quickly. Vahana aims to meet the growing needs of urban transport by harnessing the latest technologies in electric propulsion, energy storage and machine vision, all-in-one personal flight.

1218 UAV pieced together as "Olympic rings"

On the night of February 9, at the opening ceremony of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, 1218 UAVs built the first UAV light show in the history of the Olympic Games. UAV carrying LED lights in the air to form a three-dimensional image of a skier, then change the formation, pieced together as "Olympic rings". The Guinness Book of World Records, which flew the largest number of drones at the same time, was born here.

The 1218 unmanned aerial vehicles were Shooting Star drones made by Intel Corporation of the United States, each weighing only 330 grams, a little heavier than volleyball. Intel explained that "the unmanned aerial vehicles that were unveiled at the opening ceremony were equipped with LED lighting devices that could show more than 4 billion color combinations when flying to the sky." There are media reports the UAV formation this time is not on-site control, but pre-recorded because of fear of Pyeongchang overly cold weather and unpredictable winds.

In fact, Chinese companies have also used quadcopter drone for similar performances. In December 2017, 1180 UAVs produced by Chinese companies made a spectacular and varied show in Guangzhou, forming different Chinese characters and patterns, setting a world record then. The live performance and the changing patterns make it more difficult to imagine the difficulty of the programming.

An authoritative Chinese expert on the field of drone said on the "Global Times" on the 11th that the key to fancy business performance is to be accurate and coordinated. The movements are pre-arranged, and according to the location of each individual UAV in accordance with their time and path of flight, you can display complex graphics in the air. In simple terms, there is no particularly complicated algorithm, and the main task is to have each UAV fly according to the path and time of the animation simulation. The UAV GPS signals or more accurate differential GPS signal will accurately locate the spatial location.

Would you like to know if your flight will be delayed? Ask Google.

Today, Google's flight search service APP Google Flights released new features that make use of artificial intelligence techniques to predict flight delays. Google Flights, Google's flight inquiry service, has recently been updated to help travelers resolve some problems. Based on historical flight status data, Google Flights attempts to predict when the flight will be delayed, and it can tell you which amenities are not included in the base economy class fare.

Google Flights now not only gets information directly from airlines, but it also uses historical data and machine learning algorithms to predict flights that have not yet been flagged for delays, helping travelers to cope and reduce losses. As long as the user search for a flight, Google will inform you if the flight may delay. This is based on historical data and the latest flight information to predict. Google said it will only issue a delay forecast when the system has at least 80% confidence. Google Flights uses advanced technology to predict when the ticket price increases, to help customers seize the best time to buy tickets.

There is another importance upgrade should be mentioned which also improves the service quality of this APP. In the past few years, many airlines started providing only basic carrier services. Additional services such as baggage check-in and on-board meals are subject to additional fees, and users are sometimes unsure of what items are included. Now, Google Flights shows you which services are not included in the fare. The available airlines include Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, and United Airlines.

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