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Volume 01 |
Issue 34 |
February 8, 2021
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eVtol Airport, Skyborg, Airline/Airport Biometric Compliance
Welcome back to the Future of Aerospace, where each week we dive into a few of the trends rapidly defining the next generation of aircraft and aerial markets.
A new Single European Sky Joint Undertaking urban air mobility research project, Gof 2.0, will test flights of unmanned aircraft systems and electric air taxi in European airspace shared with manned aircraft over the next two years, according to a Feb. 8 press release. The new project kicked off at the end of January and features 13 members, including Estonian Air Navigation Services, Droneradar, EHang and Polish Air Navigation Services Agency among others.
SpaceX will launch NASA’s SPHEREx astrophysics mission, the agency announced Feb. 4. The launch contract is worth $98.9 million, including launch service and other mission-related costs. The mission is targeted for June 2024 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex-4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. More on that here.
THIS WEEK: The UK government is funding an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) airport to be used by drones and air taxis. The Urban Air Port Air-One ‘pop up’ airport will be launched in Coventry by the end of 2021, according to a Jan. 27 press release. (Electrification and Sustainability)
The commercial use of facial recognition technology has advanced at an explosive rate, expanding into numerous industries. This technology has had an especially transformative impact on the commercial aviation industry, where facial biometrics is being globally adopted by airlines and airports. (COVID-19 Impact)
Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Commander Brig. Gen. Heather Pringle and Air Force program executive officer for aircraft and advanced weapons Brig. Gen. Dale White are leading an effort this year to test multiple prototypes for Skyborg, one of three Air Force Vanguard programs intended to field advanced capabilities rapidly. (Longshots)
Thanks for reading.
—The Future of Aerospace Team
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| UK Government Funds Development of Pop Up eVTOL Airport in Coventry |
Image: Hyundai Motor Group
The UK government is funding an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) airport to be used by drones and air taxis. The Urban Air Port Air-One ‘pop up’ airport will be launched in Coventry by the end of 2021, according to a Jan. 27 press release.
The airport will be launched in partnership with Hyundai Motor Group, Coventry City Council, the UK government, and Urban Air Port. The funding for the project comes from the UK government’s Future Flight Challenge and totals £1.2 million (about $1.6 million).
How are these airports different from traditional airports?
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- The Air-One airports will be 60 percent smaller than traditional heliports, can be installed in days, and emit net zero carbon emissions, according to Urban Air Port. It will be 14 meters in diameter to accommodate helicopters as well as a wide variety of eVTOL aircraft. While the airport is designed for eVTOL’s it also serves as a hub for other sustainable transportation.
- “The idea with it is that it's designed to have the approach of a helicopter,” Ricky Sandhu, founder and executive chairman of Urban Air Port, said. “It has an elevated platform, which once you've landed on it, it can move down to the ground level. So it's avoided all the obstacles on rooftops and in cities, and then you that the platform moves down to the grade level, where the vehicle can then be pushed to one of the stands and in the periphery of the airport for charging, for refueling, cleaning, or for passengers. So you have an integrated hangar. You have integrated maintenance. You have integrated staff training, passenger processing, and maybe even a bookshop and cafe.”
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“Urban Air Port has the potential to revolutionize cities across the world, making them more connected, cleaner, and accelerating our green economic recovery,” Gary Cutts, UK Research and Innovation Future Flight Challenge director, said. “This project epitomizes the purpose of the Future Flight Challenge fund – it is innovation at its finest – and will help to position the UK at the vanguard of electric urban air mobility.”
Read the full story here.
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| Biometric Privacy in the Era of COVID-19: Facial Recognition Compliance for Airports and Airlines |
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Image: Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
The commercial use of facial recognition technology has advanced at an explosive rate, expanding into numerous industries. This technology has had an especially transformative impact on the commercial aviation industry, where facial biometrics is being globally adopted by airlines and airports.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has placed a premium on avoiding personal contact and made mask-wearing nearly universal, facial recognition technology in airport screening and security has become simultaneously more urgent and more difficult. Recently, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) announced encouraging new findings regarding the potential to use facial recognition successfully without requiring most airline passengers to remove their masks; this development will no doubt further fuel the already rapid adoption of facial biometrics in the commercial aviation industry.
Current and Future Uses of Facial Recognition Technology by Airports and Airlines
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- According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (“GAO”), at least 27 domestic airports implemented facial recognition technology as of the second half of 2020. Although implementation at many of these airports has been overseen by Customs and Border Patrol (“CBP”), the GAO notes the CBP audited just one of its commercial aviation partners to ensure compliance with federal facial recognition privacy policies.
- The enhancements to air travel through facial recognition are significant—offering passengers a seamless, frictionless gate-to-curb experience, and providing both a significant boost in overall customer satisfaction, as well as to airlines’ and airports’ bottom lines in the process.
- For example, British Airways is now able to board 240 customers in only 10 minutes without causing any massive queuing on the aircraft. Similarly, customers can be identified and permitted access to airport lounges, while also receiving a more personalized experience, as a result of airlines’ ability to monitor customer preferences. And without being required to spend their time checking travelers’ identification, airline staff are better able to give their attention to passengers who need it, like the elderly or those with disabilities and other special needs.
- In January 2021, DHS announced “promising” results following controlled tests of an array of facial recognition technologies to determine the identities of individuals wearing facial coverings. These tests evaluated the ability of various biometric acquisition systems to obtain and match facial data taken from individuals wearing several types of common protective masks.
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| Air Force Research Lab to Test Multiple Skyborg Prototypes This Year |
Image: U.S. Air Force
Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Commander Brig. Gen. Heather Pringle and Air Force program executive officer for aircraft and advanced weapons Brig. Gen. Dale White are leading an effort this year to test multiple prototypes for Skyborg, one of three Air Force Vanguard programs intended to field advanced capabilities rapidly.
“We have more tests this year,” Pringle said Feb. 4 of Skyborg during a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies’ Aerospace Nation virtual forum. “We have multiple prototypes that we’ll be looking at, and we’re assessing the military utility and capabilities with our warfighter partners. We’re driving toward, Gen. White and I and our whole team, an initial capability in 2023.”
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- The tests will follow a demonstration on Dec. 9 in which a Skyborg XQ-58A Valkyrie attritable by Kratos flew in formation over U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., with a Lockheed Martin F-22 and an F-35 fighter and served as a gatewayONE communications translator between the two fighters.
- Northrop Grumman builds gatewayONE, which is to link fourth and fifth generation fighters and attritables as part of the Air Force Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS).
- The December demonstration, in which the Valkyrie flew in formation with the F-22 and F-35, was “the first ever opportunity to show an attritable as a force multiplier with two fifth gen aircraft,” Pringle said.
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“There were a couple of challenges that we faced,” Pringle said of the December test. “With the attritable itself, it was a rocket-assisted takeoff,” which shook the aircraft and “caused stress on the communication gateway so we weren’t able to establish it in flight with the onboard communication gateway, but we still achieved the objective because we had a backup on the ground so the connections were made, and so we still got the job done.”
Read the full story here.
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