The UK’s Coventry city has announced a new programme to build the foundation for drone and air taxi services in the UK.
“Urban Ascent brings together leading organisations across technology, research, and local government to prepare Coventry for a future of safe, sustainable aerial drone mobility,” said the city in a press release. “The aim is to develop a city-scale blueprint for integrating drones and electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft into urban environments.
“In real life this means assessing how drones could enhance services in areas such as: medical logistics (speeding up transport of samples, medicines, and supplies for the NHS emergency response); delivering life-saving defibrillators or providing live aerial views enhancing situational awareness infrastructure inspection; reducing spending, working at risk and disruption by automating surveys of roads, bridges, and utilities; and urban air taxi preparation – supporting the long-term vision for passenger eVTOL operations to increase mobility and reduce congestion and emission.”
“Rather than conducting live trials, Urban Ascent focuses on designing the essential frameworks that will make urban drone operations possible in the future including building a business case for urban air mobility and exploring regulatory and infrastructure readiness, including vertiport planning,” said the city.
Mariya Tarabanovska, Innovation Lead – Future Flight at Innovate UK said, “The Urban Ascent project is a strong example of how local authorities, industry, and academia can come together to prepare for the safe and scalable integration of new aviation services which benefit local communities and drive growth across the UK. We’re proud to support this work through the Future Flight programme.”
The work is funded by Innovate UK and the Department for Transport through the Future Flight Regional Demonstrator programme. Led by Coventry City Council, the consortium includes Skyfarer Ltd, Coventry University, the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), SLiNK-TECH, and Odys Aviation. The consortium is supported by the Midlands Aerospace Alliance, building on insights from the earlier Drone Ready Cities initiative funded by the Regional Pioneers Fund. Coventry City Council is the project lead.
For more information
https://www.coventry.gov.uk/news/article/5401/urban-ascent-coventry-takes-flight-as-a-drone-ready-city
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