Passenger Drones (Concept of Mine)

[ZooNamedGames]

So recently I've been thinking on the idea of passenger drones which would merge two vehicles into one, specifically, drones (obviously) and cars.

Now let me explain, this wouldn't just be a helicopter. For one it would be far smaller, however it would operate whilst airborne the same by using propellers to provide lift and movement. However it would be computer controlled, with a passenger selecting a destination from a list of authorized landing sites and once landed, the vehicle can then drive closer to the location as needed using driving autopilot software already in development.

The vehicle would also be small with only 2-3 seats for passengers which would likely sit in a tight circle as to minimize space. The motor would also be made from pre-existing engines, such as the ones from lightweight airplanes for flight so that there wouldn't need additional costs for creating new engines.

This is borderline a "flying car", but unlike the close attempt we have, this would be small and function just about anywhere. The greatest benefit being that you could take photos of an area you would like to have used for the flight landing software and send it to a division who would look it over, approve it and therefore let you turn any acceptable location into a landing site.

Flying drone technology is existing technology as it's been used for the military for years and now has become considered for companies with lightweight drones. Now a helictoper-esque vehicle is not quite the same as a 10 pound drone, but with time and development safety can be included into the design and make it viable.

The whole point of the vehicle being that people can go anywhere they want, and possibly avoid traffic. If this were to become successful, maybe we could finally become the BTTF 2015 and finally make traffic jams a thing of the past?

This was just an idea of mine. Let me know what's right or wrong or just your thoughts.

[WestAir]

The very first roadblock you'll encounter will be a legal one, then a logistical / contingency battle.

1.) Who will be at fault for accidents? (If your drone crashes into a newly made telephone wire because the telephone company is closed on weekends and didn't send the height restriction to your companies flightplan software department, and three people die, where is this litigation going?)

2.) What happens when the autopilot software fails? (I.E. the computer crashes, the computer no longer knows where it is, the consumer fails to maintain the product and aerodata is lost, or an emergencies caused by sudden hazardous weather or birdstrikes occurs?)

3.) Given that roads can have more vehicles per hundred feet than an airway, you will have a magnitude (or five) less capacity than a road. How will the capacity restriction on designated drone airways impact (or make impossible) the initial goal of replacing crowded highways?

I've kept this fairly light with regards to the plethora of real issues that have already been brought up and are already being tackled by two or three companies fighting to get this very thing airborne (excuse the pun). Up until recently (May) I was an airline pilot and it is my personal / professional opinion that flying cars are in the same "two decades away" boat as fusion reactors, (and by that I mean we won't see them for a very long time), but I also don't want to deter you from the thought game.

Edited July 26, 2016 by WestAir

[ZooNamedGames]

20 minutes ago, WestAir said:

The very first roadblock you'll encounter will be a legal one, then a logistical / contingency battle.

1.) Who will be at fault for accidents? (If your drone crashes into a newly made telephone wire because the telephone company is closed on weekends and didn't send the height restriction to your companies flightplan software department, and three people die, where is this litigation going?)

2.) What happens when the autopilot software fails? (I.E. the computer crashes, the computer no longer knows where it is, the consumer fails to maintain the product and aerodata is lost, or an emergencies caused by sudden hazardous weather or birdstrikes occurs?)

3.) Given that roads can have more vehicles per hundred feet than an airway, you will have a magnitude (or five) less capacity than a road. How will the capacity restriction on designated drone airways impact (or make impossible) the initial goal of replacing crowded highways?

I've kept this fairly light with regards to the plethora of real issues that have already been brought up and are already being tackled by two or three companies fighting to get this very thing airborne (excuse the pun). Up until recently (May) I was an airline pilot and it is my personal / professional opinion that flying cars are in the same "two decades away" boat as fusion reactors, (and by that I mean we won't see them for a very long time), but I also don't want to deter you from the thought game.

Well legal stuff is ALWAYS the first issue. We could have the solution to all our problems but there will always be a legal roadblock.

As to the first, I'd say the phone company. It's their fault they didn't report it. If a phone company puts a new low hanging wire over a road and a car hits it and becomes electricuted, that's the phone companies fault.

If there's a fault, you have a redundancy. It would follow the early NASA motto for manned rockets, "if it fails, add a redundant system to account for it". As to that which can't be solved, it would use either parachutes or pilot controls. People would need to take a short class (online or real) like for a drivers license.

Airways are not permenent whereas roads are. We can reroute passenger x1000 times more ways than by road as road is the only option of a 2D plane. With drones you have nearly full use of 2D planes with the added benefit of the 3rd.

Ofc there will always be issues. It's getting over them that takes us from dreamer to Elon Musk.

[James Kerman]

I believe DARPA is working on a project similar to this.

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Well legal stuff is ALWAYS the first issue. We could have the solution to all our problems but there will always be a legal roadblock.

As to the first, I'd say the phone company. It's their fault they didn't report it. If a phone company puts a new low hanging wire over a road and a car hits it and becomes electricuted, that's the phone companies fault.

Unfortunately, that's not up to you to decide. The telephone company probably won't agree with your interpretation and they have more lawyers.

When (not if) your company kills someone, you will be liable. If you are Google or Tesla, then you have deep enough pockets to settle the litigation. If you are a small company, you will be sued out of existence.

In fact, it's up to the FAA to set up a whole new regulatory system for your system, like they are doing with drones. This will take ages and some of the decisions made are likely to make your idea impossible.

1 hour ago, ZooNamedGames said:

If there's a fault, you have a redundancy. It would follow the early NASA motto for manned rockets, "if it fails, add a redundant system to account for it".

That certainly never was NASA's motto. Adding redundancy only adds weight and costs. You need to design the redundancy into the system.

An aircraft can simply glide to safety, even if all power fails, the pilot has time to react. A power failure on a quadcopter means you're dead. Adding manual controls and parachutes that are never going to be needed are only going to increase weight and cost.

1 hour ago, ZooNamedGames said:

As to that which can't be solved, it would use either parachutes or pilot controls. People would need to take a short class (online or real) like for a drivers license.

That changes the game completely. In this case, you are no longer operating as a taxi cab service (which is what I presumed was your first idea). People will not want to pay to pass a manual-flight license that they will only need in case the software crashes. That is not going to give them much confidence in your system.

1 hour ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Airways are not permenent whereas roads are. We can reroute passenger x1000 times more ways than by road as road is the only option of a 2D plane. With drones you have nearly full use of 2D planes with the added benefit of the 3rd.

No because collision rules mean that there must always be much more distance between two flying aircraft than between two cars. A 200m distance between two aircraft is considered a near-collision in aviation safety. In urban areas, if enough of your quadcopters are around, you are going to have trouble keeping the minimum distance.

1 hour ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Ofc there will always be issues. It's getting over them that takes us from dreamer to Elon Musk.

 

[hms_warrior]

keep in mind that a good percentage (to sleepy to search for exact numbers, but something like 2/3 or even higher) of traffic-jams are a consequence of human behaviour, either direct (crashing your car) or indirect (bad driving make others need to break, causing a disturbtion in flow). We can expect that traffic gets a lot better once the human factor is out of the equotation... and whit a more efficent flow of traffic, you don't need to go airborne to avoid it (which, if i read your post right, was the starting idea behind).

 

edit: wow the software replaces not-so-nice-words? ^^ awesome! edit for nicer language^^

Edited July 26, 2016 by hms_warrior

[magnemoe]

One major issue with flying cars is noise, they are likely to be noisy like helicopters, not something you want the neighbor to come home with at the middle of night. this is also why they are flying cars, you drive from home to an takeoff area unless you live remote like an farm, and land on an place some distance from target. You can then drive to the door. 

The autopilot issues is mostly solved, the flight controller issues are not but its about standards, should be possible to automate, you plot your target, the autopilot know your crafts performance request an flight vector to server who manages this and give one back to autopilot, crafts also broadcast position and vector to other like the system for ships. your vector might also be changed by server like its a lot of traffic in an area you fly past so you are redirected above or around. 

[Darnok]

You should read about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coandă_effect

This can help you to make silent rotor

Edited July 26, 2016 by Darnok

[Van Disaster]

5 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

If there's a fault, you have a redundancy. It would follow the early NASA motto for manned rockets, "if it fails, add a redundant system to account for it". As to that which can't be solved, it would use either parachutes or pilot controls. People would need to take a short class (online or real) like for a drivers license.

Given a number of events concerning aircraft system failures even when there's been two qualified pilots in command, you are quite optimistic, I have to say. If something goes wrong with a car then the only time it gains kinetic energy is if it went wrong going down a hill ( I'm ignoring being hit by another vehicle, becuase that is not something wrong with the car ). A flying vehicle is *always* at the top of hill. I want two competent, aware crew in the front of my air transport, it's bad enough that single-pilot operation is an idea let alone nobody there at all.

A considerable amount of NASA redundancy ( all space operators in fact ) is ground-based systems - spacecraft aren't really all that autonomous like an UAV is expected to be.

Edited July 26, 2016 by Van Disaster

[RCgothic]

Four engines. In the event of failure, two have sufficient power to stay aloft at max throttle, with the third providing trim for offset load. 

Obstacles and noise issues can be mostly avoided by a minimum height for non-vertical flight. Power lines in the UK aren't higher than 55m And anything taller than that would be both mapped (regulatory requirement) and detectable by the onboard collision avoidance system.

Drones won't move as fast as aircraft, so the 200m mandatory minimum distance can probably be reduced. They'll also talk to each other to keep out of each other's way ideally.

[WestAir]

What does it do when an insect crashes into my flying car midair and blocks the static port, making my aerodata computer freeze?

 

EDIT: Fyi, my point is that there must be a qualified occupant capable of manual control when the system fails, or else a system failure will be synonymous with fatalities in all cases.

Edited July 26, 2016 by WestAir

[RCgothic]

Studies have shown it takes at least 12 seconds for a passenger to become adequately aware and in control in an emergency situation. Vehicle accidents happen so quickly that a manual override is totally useless.

 

Yes, a system failure will lead to deaths. So you design a system that cannot fail catastrophically or with redundant back ups as much as possible.

 

Automated vehicles will be orders of magnitude safer than manually operated ones. They don't get tired. They don't get distracted. They can look in every direction at once and see through light obstructions. They can talk to each other in order to better manage traffic and reduce possibility of collision. They will never get reckless or exceed the safe operating envelope. They cannot be medically incapacitated at the controls. They can have back ups for failed components.

Humans were not designed for piloting vehicles. To suggest we're somehow superior to a purpose designed system is human chauvinism.

Edited July 26, 2016 by RCgothic

[Frozen_Heart]

The concept I've seen has four arms like a quadcopter, but two motors per arm in case one fails.

[kerbiloid]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_X-Jet

[WestAir]

1 hour ago, RCgothic said:

Studies have shown it takes at least 12 seconds for a passenger to become adequately aware and in control in an emergency situation. Vehicle accidents happen so quickly that a manual override is totally useless.

When you are training for a private pilots certificate the instructor will often have you close your eyes and put the aircraft into an unusual attitude, then have you open your eyes and try to return the aircraft to straight and level flight. This is often completed in less than 5 seconds. Do you remember where you read this study, I want to read it.

Edited July 26, 2016 by WestAir

[wumpus]

10 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

When (not if) your company kills someone, you will be liable. If you are Google or Tesla, then you have deep enough pockets to settle the litigation. If you are a small company, you will be sued out of existence.

That certainly never was NASA's motto. Adding redundancy only adds weight and costs. You need to design the redundancy into the system.

An aircraft can simply glide to safety, even if all power fails, the pilot has time to react. A power failure on a quadcopter means you're dead. Adding manual controls and parachutes that are never going to be needed are only going to increase weight and cost.

Some notes:

I trust google's deep pockets far more than Tesla's.  I think even Toyota, GM, and Ford will think twice before making the wild claims Tesla does.  Tesla eats the risk because they need to keep growing, and the risk of the massive lawsuits outweighs the risk of standing still and being caught and passed by the big boys.

For a long time, NASA would build two space probes on the basis that "two-offs aren't much more expensive than one-offs" (the design being the biggest expense) and launching both in the hopes that at least one will survive (see mariners, pioneers, voyagers, etc.).  I suspect that the Delta program lead to fixed launch costs lead to ending this.

Redundancy is still an option.  I'm not even sure why the quadcopter is more popular than a tricopter, but moving to a pent-copter should survive an engine loss (theoretically you should be able to do it with a quadcopter, but it probably puts to hard a load on one of the engines).  "Gliding to safety" implies that it can find a landing strip (for values of "landing strip" including the Hudson River), I wouldn't always assume such (hopefully the navigation computer has pre-computed flight plans that are always with x-km of a "safe landing area".

In the end, I remain a big believer in using lift to maintain flight.  Toy drones might make the quadcopter design popular, mostly because it simplifies the issues of helicopter design (no need to angle the rotor), but the efficiency of non-fixed-wing flight remains an issue.  Speaking of "non-fixed-wing", I'd love to plug the Scorpion (yet again): that was an (extremely) short takeoff and landing "drone" (old school drone, 2-4m wingspan depending on which prototype you were looking at).  Overall design by Burt Rutan, detailed engineering by Freewing.  Simply and efficient, it seems a great loss that it never went anywhere.  In "passenger drone" configuration, it would also [still] not worry about complete lack of pilot visibility during takeoff/landing.

[ZooNamedGames]

This is kind of interesting since I made a point and some have argued for and against, I want to continue to watch how people respond to my idea.

Once we reach a stand still I'll begin to respond to others points that weren't answered by others.

[Vanamonde]

The primary obstacle to this would be operating expenses. Vertical flight/hovering is very expensive in terms of fuel. The only reason some vehicles do it anyway is that it's extremely useful for a set of very limited applications. It's not something you would want to be doing on a regular basis for travel because fixed-wing craft are so much more efficient for air travel. And the vehicle you're proposing would be less efficient than a car in ground mode as well, because when not flying it would still be hauling around all the machinery required for flight. This is why vehicles of this sort have been proposed literally for decades, but no one has yet been able to make one that's economically feasible. They can make vehicles which operate in this manner, mind you, but not in a way that's cost-effective enough to be worth manufacturing and selling in numbers. 

[razark]

5 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

The primary obstacle to this would be operating expenses.

That's something I've noticed about a lot of "save/change the world" ideas.  They seem to exist in some kind of post-scarcity world.

[RCgothic]

4 hours ago, WestAir said:

When you are training for a private pilots certificate the instructor will often have you close your eyes and put the aircraft into an unusual attitude, then have you open your eyes and try to return the aircraft to straight and level flight. This is often completed in less than 5 seconds. Do you remember where you read this study, I want to read it.

I misremembered. I found the Google report, it's actually 17 seconds to respond to alerts and take back control. To actually react intelligently is another matter entirely.

The situation you describe sounds like a pilot with hands on anticipating the situation that they need to rectify. In an emergency whilst operating on automatic the manual operator may have been reading, snoozing, facing the wrong direction. They aren't going to have the situational awareness of an alert pilot anticipating that they're going to have 

Also 'often completed in less than five seconds' is not 'everyone completes in less than five seconds'.

[ZooNamedGames]

The only way to make this idea feasible as far as costs would be to follow a policy Nintendo's CEO used in the early 80s when designing the game and watch games (which for the time, became very successful) and that's "lateral thinking of withered technology" or simply using old commonly used technology for a greater use.

[Kryten]

Operating costs are going to be the issue more than up-front costs, and using 'withered technology' would make them worse.

[ZooNamedGames]

23 minutes ago, Kryten said:

Operating costs are going to be the issue more than up-front costs, and using 'withered technology' would make them worse.

Your taking the definition too seriously. Withered doesn't mean broken, it means technology that has been used for a great many years.

[Kryten]

No, you're interpreting too literally. Withered technology in aeronautics is technology that's heavier and less efficient, it will inherently increase recurring costs through fuel.

[ZooNamedGames]

11 minutes ago, Kryten said:

No, you're interpreting too literally. Withered technology in aeronautics is technology that's heavier and less efficient, it will inherently increase recurring costs through fuel.

Noting the quote came from video game designers, and not aeronautical engineers.

Why not use the engine from a Cessna? It's existing reliable technology, we'd just be flipping it 90 up. It would fit the "withered technology" definition as Nintendo meant it.