Photography / Li Jigang
Author: Qi Juan, a media reporter of Jiaokerong
Biography
Gao Yuanyang, Ph.D. in Management, famous general aviation industry expert, director / professor of general aviation industry research center of Beihang University, vice president of road-air collaborative three-dimensional transportation branch of China Transportation Association, director of China Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, visiting scholar of Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
He has participated in the research and drafting of major policies related to national general aviation, undertaken a number of aviation-related research projects at the national and provincial and ministerial levels, presided over the development of general aviation industry and the planning of parks / aviation towns in more than 50 provinces and cities across the country, published more than 60 important academic papers, and published three books. He is employed as a consultant for the development of aviation industry in Zhejiang, Jilin, Nanning and other provinces and cities.
He has been interviewed by Xinhua News Agency, CCTV and other national media and mainstream aviation media at home and abroad, and has made keynote speeches at international and domestic industry summit forums.
A car in the middle of a crowded road, suddenly transformed into a flying machine, freely shuttled through the city's tall buildings - this scene often staged in science fiction movies, and now with the development of the times and the advancement of technology, it is turning from a dream to a reality.
Why does urban transportation necessarily expand into the air? What more problems does it need to solve? With the urban air traffic flight system, what will the future travel scenario look like? With these questions in mind, our reporter recently interviewed Gao Yuanyang, director of the General Aviation Industry Research Center of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and vice president of the Road-Air Collaborative Three-dimensional Transportation Branch of the China Transportation Association.
When meeting Professor Gao Yuanyang, he brought a lecture on the theme of "Looking up at the starry sky and having ambitions to release aerospace dreams" for the students of Beijing Experimental School: "Human beings have had the dream of flying freely since ancient times, and the future development of urban air traffic will show a scene of unmanned manned cargo aircraft flying freely between urban buildings to solve the urban problem of urban ground traffic congestion, which sounds very sci-fi, but it will become a reality and is worth looking forward to." Offstage, the eyes of a group of young faces flashed with the light of dreams.
Urban AirMobility (hereinafter referred to as UAM) is to establish a safe and efficient air transport system in densely populated urban areas, use cargo drones for small parcels and express delivery, and realize urban air traffic travel by airbus and air taxis through passenger aircraft (mainly unmanned aerial vehicles in the future). As a supplementary option for existing ground transportation, the introduction and construction of UAM will undoubtedly completely change the status quo of industries such as roads, railways, traditional aviation and waterways, and if it can be realized in the future, it will be a revolution in the history of human mobility. After the lecture, in the school library, the reporter's interview with Professor Gao Yuanyang began with the introduction of the concept of UAM.
Schematic diagram of urban drone cargo
"The concept of urban air traffic was first proposed by the United States." Gao Yuanyang said.
Rapid urban development has made ground transportation more and more congested, especially in some large and medium-sized cities, traffic congestion has become an urban chronic disease. After 1990, the major airports in the United States have been filled with large aircraft, thousands of people in and out of the airport, at the entrance and exit, there are thousands of cars to pick up, and then poured into the city, which caused the city road congestion, flight delays, cancellations and other repeated occurrences. Both the local highway system and the airport transportation system are close to saturation.
"At the time, the utilization of more than 5,400 general airports in U.S. airspace was low. More than 90 percent of the U.S. population lives near these general airports, and there are more than 18,000 small take-off and landing fields in remote areas, villages, and other places in the United States. These airport resources offer another possibility to solve urban traffic problems. Gao Yuanyang explained.
To this end, NASA proposed in 2000 to develop a small aircraft transportation system (SATS). "The small aircraft transport system is to solve the problem of small take-off and landing fields, traffic problems between small cities, or small landing fields, small cities and large cities to achieve air traffic connections with small general aircraft." Gao Yuanyang said. He said SATS is a real-time, efficient, reliable and affordable transportation system for passengers, and is not limited to runway formats and fixed flight schedules like public transport aviation. It can use Internet communication technology for transportation planning and scheduling, minimize the uncertainty of transportation, and ultimately aim to alleviate the current congestion of spoke highways and air traffic, and shorten the time people spend traveling on the road.
With the iteration of technology, urban transportation has fully absorbed experience from the advanced concept of SATS, and gradually developed urban air mobility (hereinafter referred to as UAM) for cities, which has also laid the "seed of dreams" for engineers to develop new aircraft.
In people's minds, traditional aviation is to meet the needs of "point-to-point" long-distance travel from one city to another, and close travel still relies on ground transportation. The proposal of urban air traffic can undoubtedly fill the gap in the traditional aviation industry and solve the problem of travel that is not cost-effective and the ground is congested. So, is the realization of urban air traffic still through traditional air vehicles?
"It is certainly not possible to use traditional aircraft," Gao Yuanyang said in the face of reporters' questions, "In addition to considering safety, I think at least two points should be considered, one is that whether it is air flight within the city or short-distance flight between cities, the volume and passenger capacity of the aircraft cannot be too large, and the other is to solve the noise pollution and emission problems of air flight." ”
It is understood that the current UAM means of transport are divided into categories, which can be divided into traditional means of transport and new means of transport. Traditional means of transport mainly refer to helicopters, and new means of transport include unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned manned new aircraft - Electric Vertical Takeoffand Landing (hereinafter referred to as eVTOL).
"Compared with traditional aircraft, eVTOL is more environmentally friendly, more economical, and more free and convenient to fly, thanks to the development of modern aviation technology, clean energy and artificial intelligence technology. eVTOL integrates new aircraft design and system technology, flight is more comfortable, can achieve vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), low requirements for flight conditions and take-off and landing site conditions, is conducive to the realization of air commuting within large cities and between cities, which is its first advantage. At the same time, eVTOL is the perfect combination of aviation technology + artificial intelligence + clean energy, and the kinetic energy is electric rather than traditional fuel drive, so its second advantage is low noise, less emissions (almost zero emissions), and much lower maintenance costs than traditional aviation power systems. The use of artificial intelligence-based driverless technology in controlled driving is controllable, reliable, and the operating cost is lower than that of manned driving, which is its third advantage. Gao Yuanyang made a simple technical analysis to the reporter.
According to reports, UAM is a new field and a new track in the world, and in the research and development of the urban air travel vehicle vertical take-off and landing aircraft eVTOL, China is at the forefront of the world. At present, the representative enterprises in the domestic eVTOL field include EHang Intelligence, Xiaopeng Huitian, Fengfei Airlines, Shi Technology, Warrenk Aviation and Pantuo, and many R&D teams and start-ups are actively following up.
"However, from the development and manufacturing of eVTOL, flight verification, trial operation to enter the normal operation of a process, especially depends on the establishment of the UAM operating environment and the corresponding regulatory system." Gao Yuanyang said.
Future UAM "Air Ambulance"
In Gao Yuanyang's view, the emergence of urban air traffic is the traction of market demand.
According to relevant data, global e-commerce has grown at an annual rate of more than 15% over the past decade. As one of the countries with the largest e-commerce market, China's annual delivery of huge express parcels to urban transportation brings great pressure. "If the use of low-altitude resources to establish an urban air traffic system to achieve air logistics and parcel delivery, this will greatly improve the phenomenon of ground traffic congestion, and bring better transportation convenience and timeliness, which can be called a 'revolutionary change'." Gao Yuanyang said.
According to Morgan Stanley's research report, by 2040, the global urban air traffic market size will reach $1.5 trillion, of which air logistics is expected to be the first to achieve commercial applications. This seems to mean that compared with manned, the application conditions of UAM in the carrier scene are relatively more mature and easier to land.
Gao Yuanyang said that the future development path of UAM should be to come after people. Because the aviation industry often puts safety first, and UAM as a revolutionary, new air traffic mode, whether it is for aircraft, ground support or operation systems, it needs to undergo complete safety verification, obtain the Civil Aviation Administration's airworthiness certification license and legal regulations to be able to put into normal operation, and the safety requirements of manned than loaded goods are higher, so it can take the way of first things and people, first carry out UAM air logistics and parcel express delivery, Safety verification and empirical data accumulation through carrier flight, and manned flight after ensuring safety or having sufficient confidence in its safety.
In addition, there is another factor that cannot be ignored, that is, the psychological acceptance of the public. After all, the air is not like the ground, people may be able to accept the use of unmanned cars on the ground, but the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in the air may have to overcome psychological obstacles, which requires the accumulation of safety records and safety experience, so we must be very careful and cautious, can not rush to start, even in the initial stage to avoid more than people can afford to safety problems, in order to eliminate people's psychological obstacles.
For the future form of airborne manned, Gao Yuanyang believes that this is very similar to the ground traffic scene, "for example, there will be 'airbus', that is, passenger flights according to fixed routes, take off and land at fixed stations, so as to solve the air travel needs of popular passengers; there will also be 'air taxis', that is, eVTOL can be summoned through an APP similar to taxi software to solve a more flexible air traffic travel based on individual flight needs."
Despite the enthusiasm in the market, it is not easy for UAM to truly achieve commercial flight. In Gao Yuanyang's view, as a new type of transportation for future travel, although the manned unmanned aerial vehicle has the advantage that ground transportation cannot be replaced, it still needs to solve some key technical problems, such as: high-density lightweight battery, autonomous flight, perception and obstacle avoidance, positioning and navigation, noise, fleet path planning and management, network security technology, etc.
In addition to technical issues, there are also regulatory and ground support issues. He stressed that complete regulations and a sound ground support system are prerequisites for achieving UAM.
In addition, it can fly but is not "flying all over the sky". Gao Yuanyang said that in the future, urban air traffic must have transportation planning. This kind of planning is the same as the setting of the ground road network, such as the demarcation of the main route can consider the green belt or river channel along the ground, so that the advantage of the demarcation is to reduce the safety risks that may be brought to the ground population, to avoid causing noise interference and psychological pressure to the ground crowd. In the planning of the branch line, it is necessary to take into account the connection between air traffic and ground transportation hubs, and some flight take-off and landing points can also be set on the roof of some high-rise buildings. "Of course, not every building is suitable for flight take-off and landing points, and flight safety and load-bearing assessments are required."
Although urban air traffic is still in the experimental and testing stage at this stage, it is still some distance away from true commercial flight. However, on the whole, urban air traffic will break and reconstruct the spatio-temporal relationship of transportation, which is regarded as the future direction of solving urban transportation problems.
( Photography / Li Jigang)
The advancement of technologies such as autonomous driving, 5G, and new energy, public acceptance, capital gathering, and ground road congestion are superimposed, which are the driving factors for the concept of urban air traffic and future development. As soon as the concept of UAM was proposed, it was positively responded to by the governments and industries of some countries in Europe and the United States, and was actively preparing for layout and development, and had the foundation and conditions for industrial development. From the perspective of industrial development, what is China's position on this track?
In Gao Yuanyang's view, China is on the same starting line as other countries and regions in the development of the UAM industry, and in terms of policy environment, China also has advantages that other countries do not have.
"At present, the Civil Aviation Administration of China is undergoing the restructuring of the general aviation regulatory system and the reform of the airworthiness management of general aviation, and has taken into account UAM aircraft such as unmanned aerial vehicle logistics, unmanned aerial vehicle passengers and eVTOL to support general aviation products and technological innovation, and we also believe that UAM is an important direction for the future innovation and development of China's general aviation and is expected to achieve breakthrough development." Gao Yuanyang said.
In fact, the national level is speeding up the construction of UAM-related laws and regulations. On January 23, 2019, the Civil Aviation Administration of China issued the Guiding Opinions on the Airworthiness Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Based on Operational Risks, setting up pilot airworthiness certification pilots in five domestic unmanned aerial vehicle enterprises, focusing on exploring the airworthiness standards and approval methods for cargo, line patrol and manned aircraft. At the same time, the Civil Aviation Administration is stepping up efforts to revise the new 23 regulations to adapt to the current new situation in the UAM field and the rapid development of eVTOL.
It is worth mentioning that the support of the Civil Aviation Administration and local governments for the low-altitude economy is also continuing to increase. China is gradually practicing and promoting the development of low-altitude airspace management by establishing pilot projects for low-altitude airspace management. At the end of 2020, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced the list of the first batch of 13 unmanned aerial aviation test bases (test areas) to accelerate the development of China's civil unmanned aviation industry and maintain its international leading position. Shanghai Jinshan East China UAV Base is one of the first batch of test bases (test areas), and thus brings together a group of UAV R & D and innovation enterprises in Shanghai Jinshan.
For the future, Gao Yuanyang said that he is very optimistic about the domestic UAM market. "In my personal judgment, UAM will be in trial operation in local areas within five years, and it is possible to achieve normalized commercial operation within a considerable range within ten years." Of course, this needs to be promoted by all parties from government departments, industry to university research institutions. ”
Up to now, a number of UAM aircraft companies in China have applied to the Civil Aviation Administration and obtained test flight permits to start the test and test flight of eVTOL aircraft. With the introduction of national support policies and related supporting regulations, the strong support of local governments, the positive response and breakthrough development of the industry, the gradual formation of the supply chain system, and the blessing of the capital market, China's UAM/eVTOL industry may usher in a rapid development inflection point.
"In the future, with the in-depth development of the UAM industry, it will also promote the construction of a domestic ground-to-air three-dimensional intelligent transportation network, which integrates technologies and industrial elements such as informatization and intelligence, and is an important content and mainstream direction of new infrastructure, and will surely become a new development leader." Gao Yuanyang said.
EHang Intelligent is one of the representative enterprises in the field of eVTOL in China (courtesy of EHang)
Source: Traffic Construction and Management Magazine, No. 5, 2021