A company, Ehang, disclosed footage of its self-driven passenger drone successfully carrying humans from one place to another.
Ehang is a worldwide leader in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies. It demonstrated its Ehang 184 series two years ago at the 2016 Consumers Electronic Show. These drone series are the world’s first passenger drone capable of carrying one person up to speed of 130km/h.
According to New Atlas, the quadcopter can fly at a cruising speed for 25 minutes at a time and will then require a one-hour charge of its electric motors. The drone can also survive force seven typhoon winds.
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“Performing manned test flights enables us to demonstrate the safety and stability of our vehicles. What we’re doing isn’t an extreme sport, so the safety of each passenger always comes first. Now that we’ve successfully tested the Ehang 184, I’m really excited to see what the future holds for us in terms of air mobility,” says Hu.
When a person sits in the vehicle, they will only have to enter the destination and the drone will do the rest. It can take off autonomously, fly a route, sense obstacles, and also land. In case of any mishap, the human pilot is supposed to step in and take over the controls from a remote command station, wrote The Verge.
The tests took place in China and the company claimed that it tested the drone with 40 passengers that included its CEO Huazhi Hu and the deputy mayor of Guangzhou, China, Wang Dong. However, the company did not inform when the product will be made available for masses.
Even though the tests were a great success, Ehang believes the quadcopter still has to go through further improvements such as improving passenger experience, and addition of optional manual control that will let passengers have the piloting experiences if the wish to. The company has also tested another two-seater passenger carrying drone that can carry payload of up to 280kgs.