A personal air vehicle (PAV) is a proposed type of

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...

providing on-demand aviation services. The emergence of this alternative to traditional ground transport methods has been enabled by

unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

technologies and

electric propulsion Spacecraft electric propulsion (or just electric propulsion) is a type of spacecraft propulsion technique that uses electrostatic or electromagnetic fields to accelerate mass to high speed and thus generate thrust to modify the velocity of a sp ...

. Barriers include

aviation safety Aviation safety is the study and practice of managing risks in aviation. This includes preventing aviation accidents and incidents through research, educating air travel personnel, passengers and the general public, as well as the design of airc ...

airworthiness In aviation, airworthiness is the measure of an aircraft's suitability for safe flight. Initial airworthiness is demonstrated by a certificate of airworthiness issued by the civil aviation authority in the state in which the aircraft is register ...

operating costs Operating costs or operational costs, are the expenses which are related to the operation of a business, or to the operation of a device, component, piece of equipment or facility. They are the cost of resources used by an organization just to main ...

usability Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a soft ...

airspace Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere. It is not the same as aerospace, which is the ...

integration,

aircraft noise Aircraft noise pollution refers to noise produced by aircraft in flight that has been associated with several negative stress-mediated health effects, from sleep disorders to cardiovascular ones. Governments have enacted extensive controls that a ...

and

emissions Emission may refer to: Chemical products * Emission of air pollutants, notably: **Flue gas, gas exiting to the atmosphere via a flue ** Exhaust gas, flue gas generated by fuel combustion ** Emission of greenhouse gases, which absorb and emit rad ...

, tackled first by small UAS certification then experience.

Definition

The personal air vehicle (PAV) is intended to provide flight convenience similar to the private car in terms of accessibility and ease of operation, while also offering the speed and routing efficiencies made possible by direct point-to-point flight. The PAV differs from conventional

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

types and

flying car A flying car or roadable aircraft is a type of vehicle which can function both as a road vehicle and as an aircraft. As used here, this includes vehicles which drive as motorcycles when on the road. The term "flying car" is also sometimes u ...

s in being usable by people with no pilot qualifications.

History

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

established the Personal Air Vehicle Sector Project in 2002, as part of their Vehicle Systems Program (VSP). This project was part of the NASA Vehicle Integration, Strategy, and Technology Assessment (VISTA) office, which also included sectors for Subsonic Transports, VTOL Aircraft, Supersonic Aircraft, and High Altitude Long Endurance Aircraft. The objective of each sector was to establish vehicle capability goals and the required technology investment strategies to achieve those breakthroughs. The difference in vehicle characteristics between PAVs and existing General Aviation single engine piston aircraft was set out in 2003 at an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) conference. Advanced concepts would be needed to dramatically enhance ease of use, safety, efficiency, field length performance, and affordability. In 2006 the VSP was replaced by new NASA Aeronautics initiatives. PAV technology development efforts at NASA shifted to a prize-based investment, with NASA Centennial Challenge Prize funds of $250,000 being provided for a Personal Air Vehicle Challenge in 2007.

Benefits

Currently the doorstep-to-doorstep average speed for cars is . In the greater Los Angeles area, this speed is predicted to degrade to by year 2020. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) states that of gasoline are wasted in traffic jams each year. A future system of travel by PAVs might avoid air traffic jams and could help to relieve those on highways.

Barriers

Air traffic control

The

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

(FAA) infrastructure is not currently capable of handling the increase in aircraft traffic that would be generated by PAVs. The FAA plan to upgrade forms the

Next Generation Air Transportation System The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) is an ongoing United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) project to modernize the National Airspace System (NAS). The FAA began work on NextGen improvements in 2007 and plans to finis ...

, planned for 2025. An interim plan is to use smaller airports. Modeling by NASA and others have shown that PAVs using smaller community airports would not interfere with commercial traffic at larger airports. Currently there are over 10,000 public and private small airports in the United States that could be used for this type of transportation. This infrastructure is currently underutilized, used primarily by recreational aircraft.

Noise

Noise from PAVs could also upset communities if they operate near homes and businesses. Without lower noise levels that enable residential landings, any PAV must take off and land at an FAA-controlled airfield, where higher sound levels have been approved. Studies have explored ways to make helicopters and aircraft less noisy, but noise levels remain high. In 2005 a simple method of reducing noise was identified: Keep aircraft at a higher altitude during landing. This is called a

Continuous Descent Approach Continuous descent approach (CDA), also known as optimized profile descent (OPD), is a method by which aircraft approach airports prior to landing. It is designed to reduce fuel consumption and noise compared to other conventional descents. Inst ...

(CDA).

Range

Many proposed PAV aircraft are based on

electric batteries An electric battery is a source of electric power consisting of one or more electrochemical cells with external connections for powering electrical devices. When a battery is supplying power, its positive terminal is the cathode and its negat ...

, however they have low range due to the low

specific energy Specific energy or massic energy is energy per unit mass. It is also sometimes called gravimetric energy density, which is not to be confused with energy density, which is defined as energy per unit volume. It is used to quantify, for example, sto ...

of current batteries. This range may be insufficient to provide adequate safety margin to find a landing site in an emergency.

Fuel cell A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most batteries in requ ...

aircraft have been proposed as a solution to this issue, owing to the much higher specific energy of

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, an ...

Safety

Urban flight safety is a well-known problem for regulators and industry. On May 16, 1977, the New York Airways accident of a

Sikorsky S-61 The Sikorsky S-61L and S-61N are civil variants of the Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King, SH-3 Sea King military helicopter. It was developed and produced by the American helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky Aircraft. The commercial version of the Sea King w ...

helicopter shuttle from

John F. Kennedy International Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the Ne ...

, which landed on the roof of the Pan Am Building (now

MetLife Building The MetLife Building (also 200 Park Avenue and formerly the Pan Am Building) is a skyscraper at Park Avenue and 45th Street, north of Grand Central Terminal, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed in the Internation ...

) when a landing gear collapsed and a detached rotor blade killed several people on the helipad and one woman on

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stre ...

, ending that business for decades almost around the world. Current

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

accident rates would be insufficient for urban mobility. The

Sikorsky S-92 The Sikorsky S-92 is an American twin-engine medium-lift helicopter built by Sikorsky Aircraft Sikorsky Aircraft is an American aircraft manufacturer based in Stratford, Connecticut. It was established by aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky in 1 ...

's safety-focused design still allows one fatal accident per million flight hours. This rate would lead to 150 accidents per year for 50,000 eVTOLs flying 3,000 hours a year. For Sikorsky Innovations, the emerging $30 billion urban air mobility market needs safety at least as good as FAR Part 29 governing over helicopters. By May 2018, Sikorsky flew an

S-76 The Sikorsky S-76 is a medium-size commercial utility helicopter designed and produced by the American helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky Aircraft. It is the company's first helicopter specifically developed for the civilian market. The S-76 ...

120 hours with full point-to-point, real time

autonomous flight Vehicular automation involves the use of mechatronics, artificial intelligence, and multi-agent systems to assist the operator of a vehicle (car, aircraft, watercraft, or otherwise).Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Lanzon, A.,Group Coordinated Control o ...

and

terrain Terrain or relief (also topographical relief) involves the vertical and horizontal dimensions of land surface. The term bathymetry is used to describe underwater relief, while hypsometry studies terrain relative to sea level. The Latin word ...

avoidance the hard way, with Level A software and redundancy, with a safety pilot.

Sikorsky Aircraft Sikorsky Aircraft is an American aircraft manufacturer based in Stratford, Connecticut. It was established by aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky in 1923 and was among the first companies to manufacture helicopters for civilian and military use. Pre ...

want to reach a vertical

flight safety Aviation safety is the study and practice of managing risks in aviation. This includes preventing aviation accidents and incidents through research, educating air travel personnel, passengers and the general public, as well as the design of airc ...

of one failure per 10 million hours on high-utilization platforms by combining current

rotorcraft A rotorcraft or rotary-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air aircraft with rotary wings or rotor blades, which generate lift by rotating around a vertical mast. Several rotor blades mounted on a single mast are referred to as a rotor. The Internati ...

experience with advances in autonomous flight,

integration and

Studies

The

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

is funding a 3-leg

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

4.2m study (under the

Seventh Framework Programme The Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, also called Framework Programmes or abbreviated FP1 to FP9, are funding programmes created by the European Union/European Commission to support and foster research in the Europea ...

) of technologies and impacts for PAVs; Human-aircraft interaction, Automation of aerial systems in cluttered environments, and Exploring the socio-technological environment.Czyzewski, Andrew
Personal flying vehicles project aims to end road congestion
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The Engineer (UK magazine) ''The Engineer'' is a London-based monthly magazine and website covering the latest developments and business news in engineering and technology in the UK and internationally. History and description ''The Engineer'' was founded in January 185 ...

'', 22 June 2011. Accessed: 26 July 2011.myCopter
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'', 2011. Accessed: 26 July 2011.

Progress

Fulfillment of the NASA vision for PAVs is likely to unfold over several decades. Several vehicle types exist which strive to meet the PAV definition: *

Roadable aircraft A flying car or roadable aircraft is a type of vehicle which can function both as a road vehicle and as an aircraft. As used here, this includes vehicles which drive as motorcycles when on the road. The term "flying car" is also sometimes u ...

* Ultralight Helicopters *

Light Sport Aircraft A light-sport aircraft (LSA), or light sport aircraft, is a fairly new category of small, lightweight aircraft that are simple to fly. LSAs tend to be heavier and more sophisticated than ultralight (aka "microlight") aircraft, but LSA restrictio ...

Autogyro An autogyro (from Greek and , "self-turning"), also known as a ''gyroplane'', is a type of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. Forward thrust is provided independently, by an engine-driven propeller. Whi ...

s *

Ultralight trike An ultralight trike is a type of powered hang glider where flight control is by weight-shift. These aircraft have a fabric flex-wing from which is suspended a tricycle fuselage pod driven by a pusher propeller. The pod accommodates either a so ...

s (powered hang gliders with motorized wheels) * Powered paragliders *

Motor glider A motor glider is a fixed-wing aircraft that can be flown with or without engine power. The FAI Gliding Commission Sporting Code definition is: a fixed-wing aerodyne equipped with a means of propulsion (MoP), capable of sustained soaring flight ...

s * Vertical Take-Off and Landing Aircraft Most vehicles in the above category do not meet all the requirements set by NASA. However, some vehicles come close. Ultrallight aircraft are of special interest since their energy usage is low. Hybrid forms of the vehicle types above can also be useful. Some hybrid forms that exist are: * the

Opener Blackfly The Opener BlackFly is an American electric-powered VTOL personal air vehicle designed by Canadian engineer Marcus Leng. It was publicly revealed in 2018, after nine years of development. The aircraft is intended to be supplied complete and r ...

, an automated, electrically-powered personal VTOL with good energy efficiency. * the

AeroVironment SkyTote The SkyTote is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), tail-sitter Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL)-fixed wing hybrid plane, which attains the advantages of both airplane designs (respectively VTOL takeoff capability and decreased energy usage). In ...

, a combination of airplane and a helicopter. It is also fully automated, similar to

driverless car A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for S ...

s. * The

Ornithopter An ornithopter (from Greek ''ornis, ornith-'' "bird" and ''pteron'' "wing") is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers sought to imitate the flapping-wing flight of birds, bats, and insects. Though machines may differ in form, th ...

, a similar helicopter/ornithopter hybrid. * The Theolia Windream One and Hunt Aviation have come up with airship hybrids. Airships may also be foreseen with ground effect modifications. * The

Solar Impulse Solar Impulse is a Swiss long-range experimental solar-powered aircraft project, and also the name of the project's two operational aircraft. The privately financed project is led by Swiss engineer and businessman André Borschberg and Swiss p ...

and the electric airplane feature all-electric propulsion.

Autonomy

Besides the fabrication of personal air vehicles, the creation of autonomous systems for PAVs is also being researched. First off, synthetic vision electronic flight instrument systems (EFIS) as

Highway in the sky The Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments (AGATE) project was a consortium of NASA, the FAA, the general aviation industry and a number of universities. Its goal was to create a Small Aviation Transportation System (SATS) as an alternati ...

(HITS) makes it much easier to control aircraft. Also,

Phantom Works Boeing Phantom Works is the advanced prototyping arm of the defense and security side of Boeing. Its primary focus is developing advanced military products and technologies, many of them highly classified. Founded by McDonnell Douglas, the res ...

is working on designing a system that allows to automate PAVs. The PAVs are designated their own "lanes" in the sky, thereby ensuring the avoidance of possible collisions. In addition, the different PAVs are also capable of detecting each other and communicating with each other, further decreasing the risk of collisions.

PAV challenge

NASA Langley has researched and prototyped the necessary PAV technologies and has dedicated the largest cash prize in the history of GA to the PAV that can demonstrate the best overall combination of performance. The PAV flight competition for this prize, known as the first annual PAV Challenge, was held Aug 4-12, 2007 and hosted the

CAFE Foundation The CAFE Foundation is a U.S. non-profit aviation development and flight test organization based in Windsor, California. CAFE was an acronym for"Competition in Aircraft Flight Efficiency" and became later "Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency." ...

in Santa Rosa, California. In 2008 the challenge was renamed as the General Aviation Technology Challenge. The new prizes were: * The Community Noise Prize ($150,000) * The Green Prize ($50,000) (MPG) * The Aviation Safety Prize ($50,000) (Handling, eCFI) * The CAFE 400 Prize ($25,000) (Speed) * The Quietest LSA Prize ($10,000) The winners were: *Community Noise Lambada N109UA $20,000 *Green Prize no winner n/a *CAFE Safety Pipistrel N2471P $50,000 *CAFE 400 Pipistrel N2471P $2,000 *Quietest LSA Lambada N109UA $10,000 *Shortest Takeoff Pipistrel N2471P $3,750 *Best Angle of Climb Pipistrel N2471P $3,750 *Best Glide Ratio at 100 MPH Flightdesign CTSW N135CT $3,750 *Cabin Noise (tie) Lambada N109UA Pipistrel N2471P $3,750 ($1,875 each)

Other notable designs

List of Personal Air Vehicles with VTOL capability * Boeing PAV * Kitty Hawk Flyer * Varuna by Sagar Defence Engineering *

Ehang Guangzhou EHang Intelligent Technology Co. Ltd is a company based in Guangzhou, China that develops and manufactures autonomous aerial vehicles (AAVs) and passenger AAVs which have entered service in China for aerial cinematography, photography ...

Passenger drone Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, have seen an uptick is usage in the early 1990’s. This technology can be used for data collection and analysis, surveillance, research, filmmaking, and other general usage, and although it ...

* Hoversurf Scorpion 3

hoverbike A hoverbike (or hovercycle) is a vehicle that can hover, resembling a flying motorbike, having at least two propulsive portions—one in front of and one behind the driver. Aeronautic motors Starting in 2014, Malloy Aeronautics has been developin ...

CarterCopter The CarterCopter is an experimental compound autogyro developed by Carter Aviation Technologies in the United States to demonstrate slowed rotor technology. On 17 June 2005, the CarterCopter became the first rotorcraft to achieve mu-1 (μ=1), an ...

Carter PAV The Carter PAV (Personal Air Vehicle) is a two-bladed, compound autogyro developed by Carter Aviation Technologies to demonstrate slowed rotor technology. The design has an unpowered rotor mounted on top of the fuselage, wings like a conventio ...

Lilium Jet The Lilium Jet is a prototype German EVTOL, electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) electrically powered airplane designed by Lilium GmbH. A seven-seat production version is planned. History Initial design studies included forward-foldi ...

Terrafugia Transition The Terrafugia Transition is a light sport, roadable airplane under development by Terrafugia since 2006. The Rotax 912ULS piston engine powered, carbon-fiber vehicle is planned to have a flight range of using either automotive premium grad ...

Terrafugia TF-X The Terrafugia TF-X is an autonomous flying car under development by Boston-based Terrafugia. The TF-X seats four passengers and uses an engine combined with two electric motors for propulsion. Unlike the previously proposed Transition, the T ...

* Xplorair PX200 * Parajet Skycar *

Urban Aeronautics X-Hawk The Urban Aeronautics X-Hawk is a proposed flying car designed by Rafi Yoeli in Yavne, Israel, being built by Metro Skyways Ltd., a subsidiary of Yoeli's privately held company, Urban Aeronautics. The firm claims to have flown the car to a height ...

NASA Puffin The Puffin is a 2010 concept for a hover-capable, electric-powered, personal vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) technology-concept proprotor aircraft. The concept design was projected to be capable of flying a single person at a speed of 150 m ...

Martin Jetpack The Martin Jetpack was a single-person aircraft under development. Despite its name, it did not use a jet pack as such, but ducted fans for lift. Martin Aircraft Company of New Zealand (not related to Glenn L. Martin Company, the US company al ...

Moller Skycar The Moller Skycar is a flying car with VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) capability which has been under development by Paul Moller for over forty years. As of 2022, the M400 has not achieved free flight. Due to the project's failure to del ...

Volocopter 2X The Volocopter 2X is a German two-seat, optionally-piloted, multirotor electric helicopter. The personal air vehicle was designed and produced by Volocopter GmbH of Bruchsal, and first introduced at the AERO Friedrichshafen airshow in 2017. T ...