Recent weeks have seen two Airbus UAV demonstrators undertake their initial flights. The Vahana VTOL system completed its first tests at the Pendleton UAS Range in Oregon and the Skyways cargo delivery UAV flew at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
Vahana reached an altitude of 16ft (5m) during its initial flight. Additional tests will now focus on transitions and forward flight. The Skyways UAV test in Singapore saw the system take off from its dedicated maintenance centre and land on the roof of a specially designed station where a parcel was automatically loaded using a robotic arm. Once successfully loaded with the parcel, the system took off and landed again, before demonstrating its automatic unloading capability.
Vahana, which has gone from concept to first flight in two years, has been developed by A3, the Silicon Valley-based offshoot of Airbus that undertakes research and development into electric propulsion, energy storage and machine vision technologies. The electrically powered Vahana features eight rotors on four tilting wings around a passenger cabin.
Skyways is the result of an experimental project between Airbus, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore and Singapore Post to research and develop air delivery in dense urban environments. The concept is for UAVs to land, dock with secure structures, drop off or take on payloads and fly to other destinations. A trial service is due to begin at the NUS campus in Singapore later this year, with staff and students able to have small parcels between 2kg (4lb) and 4kg (8lb) delivered to designated parcel stations within the campus.
Both Vahana and Skyways are part of wider research under way at Airbus into urban air mobility, which also includes the Racer high-speed helicopter demonstrator and the CityAirbus vehicle. Mark Broadbent
