myCopter: Enabling technologies for personal air transport systems - An early progress report

This paper describes the European Commission (EC) Framework 7 funded project myCopter (2011-2014). The project is still at an early stage so the paper starts with a discussion of the current transportation issues faced, for example, by European countries and describes a means to solve them through the use of a personal aerial transportation system (PATS). The concept of personal air vehicles (PAVs) is briefly reviewed and how this project intends to tackle the problem described. It is argued that the key reason that many PAV concepts have failed is because the operational infrastructure and socio-economic issues have not been properly addressed; rather, the start point has been the design of the vehicle itself. Some of the key aspects that would make a PATS viable include the required infrastructure and associated technologies, the skill levels and machine interfaces needed by the occupant or pilot and the views of society as a whole on the acceptability of such a proposition. The myCopter project will use these areas to explore the viability of PAVs within a PATS. The paper reports upon the early progress made within the project. An initial reference set of PAV requirements has been collated. A conceptual flight simulation model capable of providing a wide range of handling qualities characteristics has been developed and its function has undergone limited verification. Results from this exercise show that the model behaves as intended and that it can deliver a predictable range of vehicle dynamics. The future direction of the project is then described.