Terrafugia Wants Their Flying Car To Be Autonomous 94
Lucas123 writes "Terrafugia, a company that has been working on flying car prototypes for years, said it is now leaning toward an autonomous vehicle for safety reasons. Carl Dietrich, co-founder, CEO and CTO at Terrafugia, said at MIT last weekend that the company wants to build something that is statistically safer than driving a car. 'It needs to be faster than driving a car. It needs to be simpler to operate than a plane. It needs to be more convenient than driving a car today. It needs to be sustainable in the long run,' he said. The company's flyable car is designed with foldable wings and falls into the light sport aircraft category. It's expected to take off and land at small, local airports and to drive on virtually any road. Dietrich said the next-generation flying car is a four-seat, plug-in hybrid that doesn't require the operator to be a full-fledged pilot. A spokeswoman said today that the company is probably two years away from production."
2 years and then 10 years (Score:3)
2 years from production and 10 years before the regulators first begin to think about permitting what will be essentially a drone with passengers.
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If it has passengers, it's by definition not a drone.
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The people inside are only cargo. That makes it a drone. [wikipedia.org]
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Boy are you in for a surprise. No one gives a shit about dude, and they're going to do with you as they please.
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what does this have to do with it being classified as a drone? If a human is not controlling it from a cockpit in the vehicle, it is a drone. It doesn't matter whether it is carrying missiles, babies, or 10 tons of lard, Its still a drone.
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If your mass is the only aspect of your existence relevant to the functioning of the vehicle then you are cargo. You could be replaced with a 200lb sack of potatoes for all the pilot cares. In fact as self-important and irate as you seem to be a human pilot would probably be willing to add a few hundred extra pounds and still consider it an improvement.
"Human cargo" is a well established term - it changes the kinds of safety restraints needed, but is otherwise irrelevant to the machine. Obviously it's a t
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2 years from production and 10 years before the regulators first begin to think about permitting what will be essentially a drone with passengers.
Or perhaps never. Judging from my daily commute, most people struggle to drive safely and sensibly in two dimensions; three will be simply beyond them. And even if you introduce auto-pilot to remove the human driver, there's still things like the difference between keeping a roadworthy vehicle and an airworthy vehicle, and the potentially large volume of such cars compared to the number of aircraft today.
It will only take one of these cars to come down hard in a built-up area for their use to heavily restr
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Well I would expect a roboarioauto would probably fail to start if there was anything wrong, or something happened unexpected on the last flight, and demand maintenance.
Re:LENDING MONEY VERY RELIABLE AND SECURE (Score:1)
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Oh dear Lord (Score:1)
Can we PLEASE not fill the sky with autonomous airplanes full of people who no clue how to fly airplanes when (not if) something goes wrong?
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LOL, I'm pretty sure that was a Die Hard movie.
Yea, it was, and it wasn't them messing with the automated landing system. They where messing with the ILS, which is decidedly NOT category III capable.
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FYI I believe airplanes are capable of landing themselves
Yes and no. Sure gravity will eventually win and you WILL land, walking away can be a problem, having a flyable aircraft is slightly more of an issue.
Landing airplanes is not that difficult if you have a basic idea about what's going on and how the controls work. Throttle back and keep the thing fairly level and you are going to land. The real issue though is knowing how to get the airplane to hit the ground WHERE you want it to while in the configuration necessary. In a Cessna 150, where the landing co
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All modern commercial aircraft can land themselves.
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I'd be careful with "all" in your statement. No they ALL cannot land themselves. Many commercial aircraft are supplied with CAT 3 capacity, but not ALL of them. I would contend that *most* commercial aircraft are NOT delivered with CAT 3 equipment, because it is pretty expensive and usually unnecessary. In fact most new commercial aircraft only carry only ILS certified avionics packages.
And I'd like to point out that "land itself" is a bit misleading, even for CAT 3. Yes, the aircraft can touch down and
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Nope. They may have the equipment, but they need a Category IIIb instrument landing system at the airport to actually do so, along with a crew certified to operate it. All of which are shockingly expensive - you need computer equipment that continues to work after a failure, which in practical terms means you need a lot of computers cross-checking each other and extremely rigorously designed software (I think 7 9's). The ground equipment is similarly extremely expensive, rather tempermental, and requires lo
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One more thing..
NOBODY flies at better than CAT 3b, which is still not "land itself" but allows you to land with RVR as low as 50 meters. Which means you have to have a pilot and at least 50 meters visibility to get the thing on the ground.
Land itself would be CAT 3c, which is not allowed anywhere in the world.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... [wikipedia.org]
The best you will usually see is CAT 1, even on most commercial aircraft. Few will have CAT 2 equipment. Most crews will only be certified to CAT 2 at best,
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If nothing goes wrong.
I'm not at all thrilled with the idea of a sky full of flying cars, irrespective of whether the pilot is a machine or a trained professional.
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Is this any better than filling the sky with pilots who fly as well as most people drive? If you think drink-driving is dangerous, wait until a car comes through your roof from a hundred meters up.
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Automated system in aircraft respond faster and better to unexpected events then any human.
How will people learn to swear then? (Score:2)
What are poor drivers, exactly?
Why, anyone who doesn't drive like you.
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We have that, it's called a helicopter. You can stop, reverse, park in a space not much bigger than your vehicle, turn in a non-geologic timescale...
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So you want a Moller sky car. Which oddly enough, may be no too far off if projects like the one that mated a quad (or hex?) copter with an SUV-like frame.
Always future...Never now... (Score:3, Interesting)
Okay seriously... I've yet to see a few dozen of the _current_ Terrafugia flying cars roll off a production assembly line (or is it fly?) and here we go chatting about a four-seat plug-in hybrid that doesn't require the pilot to be a be a "full-fledged pilot"? Really? How about actually building and selling something more than a prototype before leaping on the "next-generation" bandwagon already?
Mr. Deitrich - we're not even close to having something with a power-to-weight ratio in battery storage to get anything but a giant carbon-fiber glider out of ground-effect for any length of time and you have a spokesperson saying something about being only two years away from production?
Okay, where is he? No really. Is Moller and his Skycar hiding in the weeds someplace behind this company?
Also, I would think that someone with the money to pull off buying even a low-rider existing Terrafugia prototype - won't have issues learning how to be a "full-fledged pilot". I say this only because I am considering what the monstrous price-tag would be for a semi-autonomous electric-hybrid aircraft capable of carrying four people and having a range of anything beyond running a touch-and-go pattern even once at the airport. That being on top of how long it would take the FAA to approve that kind of vehicle.
Tilt rotor hybrid for the public? LOL! Yep. I hear we've got a huge shipment of unobtainium coming from Pandora to help in its construction. And as soon as I finish my distillation of my current batch of impossibilium for powering its Infinite Improbability Drive - we're set! Only two years away!
What amazing times we live in!
(tongue planted firmly in my cheek while Terrafugia's head is planted firmly in their ass. Hopefully they have a clear acrylic stomach lining so they can see where they're going)
Apologies in advance for my dour attitude. I put Terrafugia, Moller and any production "flying car" right up there with next generation solar cells cheap enough for everyone and super carbon-nanotube batteries with enormous energy densities being available.
Oh wait! No... False alarm... No monkeys flying out of my ass yet... I guess I'll have breakfast and carry on with my day... :(
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The only way I see this working would be for the mega-rich as a more convenient alternative to a helicopter to commute from mansion to office. A private helipad at each end, and it'd be a lot faster than driving. Sure, it might cost a few million dollars, and a few hundred more in fuel each trip, but some people can throw that kind of money away - and would rather not deal with depending on a human pilot.
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Regulations will probably still mandate having a pilot on board even if he doesn't fly it. In which case they might as well take the money, buy a helicopter in the first place and then a couple of Bentleys with the change.
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Knowing the glacial rate at which government approvals work I would have to agree with this scenario :-)
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True however I would posit that the technology would be there sooner to retro-fit a piston-powered Robinson R-44 with autonomous technology than creating the magic battery hybrid for clearance through the FAA.
There definitely are people that have that kind of expendable income, but I am looking at it from the feasibility aspect as well. The technology for near-pilotless hybrid Osprey-like personal aircraft is probably further away than Moller and his imaginary Skycar.
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Take helicopter. Remove controls. Add piloting computer. Use the weight savings to sound-dampen the interior.
You can use optical guidance for landing - paint markers on the helipads it can lock on to. With GPS navigation, the basic flight it easy. Only problem technically is that in the event of mechanical failure, the computer won't be so good as an experience human at picking out a landing site and setting down safely.
I can see a few advantages in convenience though. Get in and dial. No need for a schedul
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Okay seriously... I've yet to see a few dozen of the _current_ Terrafugia flying cars roll off a production assembly line (or is it fly?) and here we go chatting about a four-seat plug-in hybrid that doesn't require the pilot to be a be a "full-fledged pilot"? Really? How about actually building and selling something more than a prototype before leaping on the "next-generation" bandwagon already?
Dingdingding! Terrafugia is this decade's Moller. Oh shit, this flying car thing is hard! Let's claim that we're waiting for new technology so that we can go back to the drawing board for another two years!
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At least Terrafugia has shown their vehicle in both full driving mode and full flight mode (i.e. not the limited tethered tests that are all that Moller ever showed)
They have even managed to convince both the FAA (who regulate planes) and NHTSB (who regulate cars) to come to the party and agree on waivers for certain requirements where both agencies differ in the requirements.
So all the "hard stuff" seems to me to have been solved and its just a matter of getting the production right.
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Yup. The Hiller museum near here has a "flying car" from the 50's. Really not much has changed in the last 3 generations. The additional weight and drag required to make a vehicle a car, make it a terrible airplane. It may get off the ground, but the performance is terrible. (see the terrafugia which has a slow cruise speed, (100mph) and for its size requires a ton of runway - 1700'). Useful load is only 500 pounds. 23 gallons of gas is 130 pounds, so it just barely carries 2, 170 pound adults.
Its just ea
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See, that's the thing. I have a friend that does exactly that - but he went one step further and just parked a small no-frills car at the airport and leaves it there. I'm always surprised at how easy it is to get in and out of small GA airports. But again - it ain't cheap by any stretch. "Save Money" and "Own a Plane" are never two things that live together well - but I will say it's damned convenient with the scenario you describe. In the Terrafugia I would just be too damn worried of getting my wings pran
Autonomous? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! (Score:1)
Howsabout FUCK NO!
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Howsabout this.
I don't trust automobiles enough to give up control of them when they only have to deal with two dimensions of travel.
Adding a third dimension of travel is pretty much right outta there.
You could say it adds yet another "dimension" to my distrust.
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That third dimension also adds two NEW vectors that have to be constantly monitored.
Remember, it's not as if only you and a potential obstacle are going to be the only things in the sky.
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Speaking of unrealistic expectations (Score:2)
They want their flying car to be completely autonomous. I want their flying car to be released to the public in a completed state, period. And the five dozen other "flying cars" while we're at it that are sitting in development hell because the FAA will not approve them for use. Ever.
I suspect we are both equally likely to get what we want!
Top priorities (Score:1)
I see they got their priorities right....
When designing a flying car, my top priority would be to make an actual flying car first, then make it autonomous.
But then again... I'm not designing a flying car.
Bonus feature... (Score:1)
Let's solve to impossible things at once! (Score:1)
George, Son of Jet (Score:1)
> autonomous
I do believe that's been the plan for 70 uears now. Also, a hex or octo rotor thing so several engines can go out and it still make a safe landing.
Let's get a move on.
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They've just perfected flying monkeys and can control WHERE they fly out of. So it's flying cars' time now.
Why develop driveable planes? (Score:2)
I remember an Arthur C. Clarke story which had in its background a late-era human society (Rescue Party, I think). They had become the ultimate commuter society because conventional automobiles had been replaced by medium-range, personal aircraft that could conveniently travel to any business, home, etc. without needing as much road infrastructure, and which let you build a house up a mountain or in a forest clearing that was as accessible as one on a razed plain. They weren't flying cars, though. They were
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Here's when flying cars will happen. (Score:2)
Flying cars will not happen when power-plants get powerful enough, or efficient enough, or reliable enough.
Flying cars will not happen when the FAA comes up with rules to regulate vehicles that are both airworthy and road-worthy.
Flying cars most emphatically will not happen when flying-car startups courting venture capital say they'll happen.
Nope. Flying cars will happen when drones have become ubiquitous enough, trusted enough, and large enough that people start to say, "Hey! If I can hire a drone to carry
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people start to say, "Hey! If I can hire a drone to carry 250 pounds of cargo across the state for fifty bucks, knowing that it'll show up within 30 minutes, make the trip in an hour, and have less than a one-in-a-million chance of dropping it along the way -- why can't I hire it to carry ME?"
This right here - truer words have never been spoken :-)
I recall an outfit I think in Germany that came up with a giant multi-bladed beast to carry a single pilot (looked like a quad-copter but with something like 19 or 20 blades) but the issue is still batteries. Awesome concept - but until something with a battery can handle sustained 1+ hour flights with a 250-300 pound payload, it'll never see the light of day :-(
Perhaps we should get Elon Musk on it? I'd trust him to do it before Moller and Terrafugia
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I guess it's sure as hell is a good thing 100 years ago we didn't have a suffering wet blanket of liability tossed over every fucking creative idea man has nowadays.
The FAA of today would have never let the Wright brothers leave the fucking ground. The OSHA of today would have never let Franklin play with electricity. See what happens when you continue to stifle innovation with liability. We will die as a species. And quickly.
I hate it when liability gets in the way of innovation. We humans aren't able to evolve any further with that kind of shit going on.
See, this is why I'm excited about drones. As long as they're not carrying people, and not big enough to kill people, we can continue to make rapid advances in intelligence, reliability, efficiency, and so forth. Then, when we have to face the regulators, we've got a much better baseline of reliability and performance to start from, and we've also got an established base population of the things. That, I think, improves the odds for those trying to push through the regulatory molasses.
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"why can't I hire it to carry ME?""
because you would probably die.
Reminds me of an old joke... (Score:2)
Announcement after take off on a commercial fight:
"Welcome aboard ladies and gentlemen for our flight to Chicago." (continues to discuss the flight altitude, weather in Chicago etc.)
"And one final announcement before you sit back and enjoy your flight. This airline believes in advanced technology and we are pleased to tell you that you are on the FIRST fully automated commercial flight to fly without pilots. We have thought of every eventuality and have programmed the autopilot to deal with each and ever
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and then you hear this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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And? They do that now. Well, not the announcement bit.
Thank you, Captain Obvious (Score:2)
*facepalm* This guy is saying the painfully obvious without talking about how to make it happen. It's like saying "What the world needs is a Star Trek transporter that's as easy to use as a phone booth."
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Even then he's not worried that the faux-pilot would dial the wrong number...
"WTH? I thought I was going to Alberta. Who the Hell are you people? I don't understand anything you're saying. Why is it so hot? And quit waving that damn AK-47 in my face!"
Hmmm, scary...defcon videos (Score:2)
Someone needs to watch these two videos to see why we need a human in the loop...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
Bring it on! I mean up! (Score:2)
If this is going to work in big cities, then machine control will probably be a necessity. Manual control would be too risky in crowded skies.
All that wasted sky above and cars are stuck in a 2D log-jam, why the hell not?
"statistically safer than driving a car" (Score:2)
I'm moving to the outback. Or Antarctica.
Cars kill hundreds of thousands every year! Ten of thousands in developed countries alone! They injure millions!
And they usually don't plummet to the ground in the process...
I can easily assess whether I'm at risk of being injured in a car accident, because it involves being on or near a road.
So if your autonomous car isn't, AT THE VERY LEAST, 10x MORE reliable than AIRPLANES (already the safest way to travel horizontally), I don't want my government to allow them.
Di
Poor precedents (Score:2)
Nothing like being misquoted by the tech press... (Score:1)
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