Volocopter hopes to have air taxis in the sky in five years
In addition to autonomous vehicles crawling the cities without drivers, we should start getting ready for the sky to be taken over by robot chauffeurs. One of the companies working on future air taxis is Germany-based Volocopter. Its 18-rotored human-sized drone took flight at Intel's CES keynote and was on display at the Las Vegas Convention Center. So naturally, we asked to sit in it. Volocopter began its journey to autonomous air taxis in 2013 and has made some impressive progress in the past four years. It's been flown not only on stage at CES, it's taken flight in Germany and completed an autonomous flight in Dubai. It used GPS waypoints during that pilotless excursion. The drone's 18 rotors are powered by 9 batteries which power two rotors each. The tiny propellers that share a battery are situated on opposite ends of the aircraft. That way if a battery fails, it won't seriously affect the stability of the Volocopter. That powerpack will keep the aircraf...