Elevating Urban Air Mobility | AiRMOUR-AURORA-Flying Forward 2020 | Final Conference

Discover the transformative potential of UAM through the lens of Europe’s three leading RDI projects!

Date: 22.11.2023
Time: 9:00AM – 5:00 PM (CET)
Location: European Convention Centre, 4 Place d’Europe, Luxembourg

TBA

Barcelona’s Tomorrow Mobility World Congress (TMWC) is the ultimate event to accelerate sustainable and intelligent urban mobility – a 3-day summit where global experts delve into the most relevant issues for the future of the sector. This year, TMWC’s full focus is on real implementation.

Get your pass here: www.tomorrowmobility.com/passes-prices

The Tomorrow Mobility World Congress (TMWC) 2023 is dedicated to helping make urban mobility more sustainable. From electric vehicles, energy intelligence including hydrogen and batteries, to Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and autonomous driving, digital twins, or blockchain, but also women empowerment in urban mobility or tactical urbanism, local governments must build our cities with a human-centric focus. 

TMWC 2023 will bring together industry executives, government leaders, and global experts to address the crucial challenges the transportation sector is facing and display effective and proven solutions for cities and the planet. 

Read more: www.tomorrowmobility.com/featured-speakers

Transportation is still the fastest-growing source of pollution globally, accounting for 23% share of global emissions in 2022. New models promoting a zero-emission and automated mobility, more sustainable urban logistics, enhanced public transport and multimodal networks  are empowering a real urban mobility revolution. Urban air mobility is a big part of this strategy.

Thought leaders, urban planners, and industry drivers are on a journey to transform the way we move across our cities and improve their liveability making our environment cleaner, safer, more efficient, and citizen-focused. TMWC is the place to join this movement and make your move matter to a better urban mobility.

Urban Mobility Days will bring together politicians, local authorities, industry, and urban transport practitioners with the European Commission to connect, share and discuss the path forward for a sustainable, innovative, and equitable future for Europe’s urban mobility.

The event will take place in Seville’s Palacio de Exposiciones y Congresos, Fibes, October 4th–6th and it’s organised together with the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU.

This year Urban Mobility Days will have a specific focus on transport skills. You can find the full programme here.

AiRMOUR partner LuxMobility‘s Managing Director Patrick van Egmond and Regional management Nordhessen GmbH‘s Managing Director Astrid Szogs will be participating in an interesting panel October 5th at 11:30:

The session centres around user needs and public acceptance of Urban Air Mobility. The following questions are to be addressed during the discussion:

Register here!

LuxMobility in partnership with EUROCONTOL will hold a two-day masterclass to bring together learners on the AiRMOUR training curriculum and interested stakeholders to build their knowledge on the topic of Urban air Mobility use cases focusing on European cities.

In order to increase the knowledge level on Urban Air mobility in different aspects Luxmobility will organise a 2-day masterclass with subject matter experts such as city representatives and project partners, ideally, also external speakers with expertise in this area from replicator city authorities, UAM industry and the medical sector. Speakers and agenda TBA later.

The masterclass will focus on opportunities and the challenges for integrating UAM drone services for cities/urban areas within the existing transport modes. After the presentations from different speakers there will be an interactive panel discussion and Q&A session.

The objectives of the two day training for participants are as follows: 

This masterclass is free of charge.

To be announced later.

Register here.

The European Aeronautics Science Network (EASN) and the University of Salerno organise the 13th EASN International Conference on “Innovation in Aviation & Space for opening New Horizons” in Salerno, Italy from the 5th until the 8th of September, 2023. The conference venue is located at the Fisciano Campus of the University of Salerno.

Like its predecessors, the 13th EASN International Conference will include several Plenary Talks by distinguished personalities of the European Aviation and Space sectors from the academia, industry, research community, and policymakers.

The event will also give the opportunity to scientists and researchers from all over the world to present their recent achievements in a series of thematic sessions, organized by internationally recognized scientists.

Furthermore, the conference is expected to be a major European Dissemination and Exploitation event of Aviation & Space related research, as it will provide a forum for presenting their activities and achieved goals, discussing current trends and future needs of aviation & space-related research, and trying to identify possible synergies with each other. Additionally, several policy development projects will also find the floor to present the strategic priorities of the European aviation sector.

See full agenda here: https://www.program.easnconference.eu/

Register here: https://easnconference.eu/2023/registration/form

The technology behind unmanned aviation today is not the same as when the AiRMOUR project started, nor will it be static after the project has ended. The rapid evolution in the field makes it difficult to firmly state the demands of supporting technology.

This report is intended to give the reader a broad understanding of the technology involved in the operation of Unmanned Aircraft (UA). It covers technologies in the aircraft itself and technologies required on the ground. The complete system, from the aircraft to the ground segment, is often referred to as the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS).

The report also discusses preflight planning procedures that are necessary in order to operate safely. It focuses on the needs of the four scenarios stated in the AiRMOUR project. However, the content of this report is relevant
for other unmanned operations as well.

Read the report here.

The European AiRMOUR project researches how emergency medical services could be supported by drones. Smaller drones carrying medical equipment or larger drones carrying medical specialists can be beneficial in many ways, but also create challenges. 

To validate our research, demonstrate the possibilities and start the discussions, AiRMOUR now brings a Roadshow to 4 cities in Europe. The lifesaving drones are coming!

7–8 March 2023
The event language is English.

As part of the AiRMOUR Roadshow 2023, the North Hesse use case will be presented in Kassel on March 7 and 8. On the first day, the demonstration day with validation and demonstration of a transport drone will take place at the pathological Institute of Kassel. On 8th March, we will discuss how UAM aerial vehicles can be incorporated into medical services and integration into the urban mobility context. Workshops and focus group activities will allow participants to put their knowledge into practice.

Tuesday 7 March at 9.00am, location: Institut für Pathologie (Klinikum Kassel), Mönchebergstraße 41-43, 34125 Kassel (Germany). AiRMOUR Validation Flight at the pathological institute of Kassel.

10 and 13 March 2023
The event language is English.

Friday March at 10.00am to 6.00pm at Place de l’Europe.
This event is targeted for the general public.

Monday 13 March at 10am to 4pm at EUROCONTROL Learning Centre.
This event is targeted for stakeholders.

4 and 6 April 2023
The event language is Finnish and English.

Tuesday 4 April, Flight from Kaivopuisto to Suomenlinna. This event is targeted to residents, medical stakeholders, city stakeholders, aviation stakeholders and press. The use case is a medical emergency drone (Falcon) making an emergency delivery of an epi-pen to a patient, close to Suomenlinna Rescue Station.

Morning session 9.45–13.30, see agenda
This event is targeted to medical, city and aviation stakeholders as well as media.

Afternoon session 14.15–16.30, see agenda
This event is targeted at residents of Helsinki and people who live or work on Suomenlinna.

Thursday 6 April, Demo day on Kansalaistori. Demo day on Kansalaistori in Helsinki centre. This event is targeted to citizens, passers-by, city representatives, medical professionals and press. The delivery drone and passenger drone will be on display on the ground for all to view and experience.

All events include presentations & videos on benefits and challenges of these innovative air mobility services, as well as surveys for attendees on their experiences and opinions.

In our live validations we use two types of emergency medical drones: one for logistic transport (ie. medicine) and another for passenger transport (ie. medical personnel). Here are the technical descriptions of the drones.

In the AiRMOUR project, simulations are an important method for validating the project results. Simulations are an important part of the project and for numerous reasons, including (i) Validating the plans and training for live demonstration; (ii) Elaborating on concepts not yet possible due to restrictions in regulations, certification, or maturity of technology; and (iii) Simulated collaboration with third parties on a scale that is not possible in live validations, including interactions with general aviation in uncontrolled airspace.

The selection of simulator software and components available to the AiRMOUR consortium is vast, established, and accurate. Nevertheless, there is a lack of an open and available eVTOL simulation model.

A simulation environment has been set up to simulate the chosen UAM EMS scenarios and test sites. The simulator environment includes a software-in-the-loop (SITL) simulator of the eVTOL flight control coupled with a flight simulator handling the eVTOL flight dynamics. The SITL simulator is connected to an eVTOL ground segment (control centre) and simulated ATM and UTM environments. Simulations can be coupled to simulated models for the test sites and interfaced with open and accessible simulator environments like FlightGear, where interactions with other air traffic can be investigated.

A new report documents the development of such a model, which is an essential part of the simulations performed in the AiRMOUR project, enabling us to meet the relevant validation objectives and simulate the various scenarios and use cases. Hence, train for the live validations.

Read the report here.

AiRMOUR organised a masterclass on Urban Air Mobility and its application for the Emergency Medical Services sector on December 7th and 8th. 

Of the twelve cities involved as Replicators in the AiRMOUR project, five of them attended the event. We asked several representatives what they learnt from the masterclass and how they are going to take the knowledge further. We gladly share the reflections from Senior Strategic Knowledge Centre officer Júlia Miczki from Budapest, Assistant Transport Strategy Officer Marie Godward from Manchester and Project Manager Camilla Wikström from the City of Stockholm.

You can read more about the masterclass programme and participants below. 

Another Urban Air Mobility masterclass will be held in autumn 2023 (date and location TBC). See also our online courses here: airmour-learningcentre.talentlms.com. 

Júlia Miczki from BKK Centre for Budapest Transport, the mobility manager of the city – and the responsible organization for the sustainable urban mobility planning (SUMP) for Budapest – told us that she wanted to learn about how to integrate urban air mobility (UAM) into their existing urban mobility system and the roles of the city planners and municipalities in the UAM implementation.

She felt that the masterclass provided an excellent opportunity to meet all the different fields of expertise involved in building up and testing real life emergency medical service (EMS) use cases with UAM solutions and to hear the AiRMOUR experts’ presentations, knowledge and visions about UAM.   

“The masterclass helped me to update my knowledge and it put it into a comprehensive context with respect to the regulation, the institutional and the operational level. It was interesting to learn about the public acceptance studies conducted about UAM, and for me it was a bit of a surprise that in general, citizens are thinking quite positively about UAM and how it could introduce new mobility solutions to their daily life”, she says.

“During the masterclass I had the impression, that it could be quite difficult for the different fields of expertise involved in UAM planning to find a common ground – not only in terms of the objectives, but in terms of understanding the differences in their mindsets and finding the best tools that can help them explain their thoughts to each other”, she says.

“Even the meaning of the same word could differ a lot. For example, ‘safety’ is itself a crucial part of sustainability in aviation, and also there is a robust strategic and operational system for safety for each aviation service provider. Meanwhile, in general road transport, safety and Vision Zero could be a long term objective, but it is still not considered as a basic condition for the sector’s and the operators’ survival. When we are talking about extending urban mobility from 2D into 3D, we need to address these differences when starting any stakeholder engagement processes.”

To conclude our interview Júlia Minczki also pointed out that: “Communication is and will be one of the most important enablers (or disablers) of the evolution of UAM, therefore, with the learnings from this masterclass I would try to help to build up step by step a realistic thinking about UAM within the urban planning community, and try to break down the silos of drones or the unrealistic safety and security concerns.” 

“Cities have an important role in building up an UAM ecosystem, and they definitely have responsibility in the ways how it will be implemented locally, and that the justification behind each UAM operation will meet the best acceptance and support of the local communities and stakeholders.”

“Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) is the strategic transport authority for Greater Manchester and joined the AiRMOUR project as a replicator city. TfGM is currently developing its thinking and strategy around the future of urban mobility to enable its consideration in our SUMP and Innovation Prospectus. In Greater Manchester, there are no current examples of urban air mobility (UAM) and we have no previous experience with UAM projects”, Marie Godward says.

“We took part in the masterclass to learn more about the medical use case for drones and the impact they have on emergency medical responses. We already have an ongoing partnership with our National Health Service and are keen to work with them to establish how UAM could benefit EMS in the North West of England. We were also really interested to learn more about the results of the engagement activities and societal acceptance studies that took place in the project cities to understand readiness levels.”

“The masterclass was a brilliant learning opportunity to further expand my knowledge and understanding of the role which UAM can play in the healthcare sector. There was a range of different professions represented at the masterclass, spanning from urban planners to air traffic controllers and that led to very insightful presentations and discussions. We were also given the opportunity to put our learnings into practice during interactive sessions which were a great opportunity to think about the considerations which would need to be made and stakeholders who would need to be involved when planning a drone flight for a medical use case.”

“I had a basic level of understanding of UAM from attending the online training sessions held earlier in the year by AiRMOUR. It was very interesting to learn how UAM can be utilised to complement ground transport for EMS’ and in turn secure the performance and robustness of the response system. I also found it useful to learn more about the barriers to the innovation and rollout of UAM which included regulatory challenges, lack of testing sites in urban areas, associated risks, and infrastructure requirements.”

“What was surprising to learn was just how much the media can influence public perceptions of drones and how that can help or hinder overall acceptance.”

“Participation in the project as a replicator city offered TfGM and Greater Manchester valuable insight into the strengths, opportunities and weaknesses of UAM technology applications in the healthcare sector. We will also share insights gained from the masterclass and project outputs with other local authorities in the UK”, Marie Godward concludes.

Camilla Wikström from the City of Stockholm tells that she wanted to get a deeper overall knowledge of the current UAM development in relation to regulation, trends and use-cases. 

“I wanted to get a better idea of the role of the city in the context of UAM. It was an interesting two days with a lot of insights gained. It also opened up for discussions and networking.”

“I had a general knowledge about the topic beforehand but got the possibility to get a deeper understanding on the development of emergency services and how other stakeholders think.

I will share the knowledge with colleagues and local stakeholders. I will take the knowledge with me both for further internal work but also to current and future projects.”

The free event was held at EUROCONTROL’s aviation learning centre in Luxembourg. 27% of the participants’ organisations were from the aviation industry, 24% were cities or regions and 15% researchers, 12% were from the medical sector and 9% from the drone sector, 6% from the technology industry and 6% others (excluding AiRMOUR partners). 

There were 53 attendees, representing eleven countries: Luxembourg, Finland, U.K, France, Hungary, Poland, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Netherlands. 

See the programme here.

Another Urban Air Mobility masterclass will be held in autumn 2023 (date and location TBC). See also our online courses here: airmour-learningcentre.talentlms.com.