Volocopter partners with Lufthansa Industry Solutions to build VoloIQ, its intelligent Urban Air Mobility software platform

Volo­copter is team­ing up with Lufthansa Indus­try Solu­tions to build its intel­li­gent and inte­grat­ed ‘Urban Air Mobil­i­ty Soft­ware Plat­form’, VoloIQ, which will offer com­plete dig­i­tal vis­i­bil­i­ty of the com­plex Urban Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem in real-time.

Run­ning on Microsoft Azure, VoloIQ will use arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and has been designed to enable glob­al scale air taxi oper­a­tions, seam­less cus­tomer ser­vice — such as sim­ple book­ing — and inte­gra­tion with exist­ing mobil­i­ty providers and new ser­vices.

It will also help to increase safe­ty and effi­cien­cy, decrease costs and ensure a reli­able and smooth user expe­ri­ence both off- and online, as well as offer­ing opti­mised air­craft util­i­sa­tion and an increased life­time for indi­vid­ual com­po­nents.

Flo­ri­an Reuter, CEO of Volo­copter, said: “VoloIQ is the dig­i­tal back­bone for enabling the whole Volo­copter Urban Air Mobil­i­ty Ser­vices ecosys­tem and serves as the brain for our air taxi ser­vices. Using big data, it will con­tin­u­ous­ly improve effi­cien­cy and have a sig­nif­i­cant pos­i­tive impact on our cus­tomer ser­vice qual­i­ty.

“We select­ed Lufthansa Indus­try Solu­tions because of their lead­ing know-how in cer­ti­fied avi­a­tion process­es and large-scale air­craft oper­a­tions. I am very much look­ing for­ward to the excit­ing out­comes of this coop­er­a­tion.” 

Volo­copter is cur­rent­ly work­ing on the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for its fourth-gen­er­a­tion air­craft, VoloC­i­ty, and until com­mer­cial oper­a­tions start — which it says could be with­in the next two to three years, VoloIQ will play an inte­gral part in flight test­ing and build­ing up test oper­a­tion facil­i­ties.

Urban Air Mobil­i­ty con­nects the com­plete ecosys­tem of city author­i­ties, exist­ing mobil­i­ty options e.g. pub­lic trans­porta­tion and ride hail­ing, flight and ground oper­a­tions, as well as cus­tomer fac­ing ser­vices.

VoloIQ will process infor­ma­tion of all par­tic­i­pat­ing com­po­nents in the ecosys­tem and make them and their inter­de­pen­den­cies dig­i­tal­ly vis­i­ble at all times.

“Dig­i­tal plat­forms and inte­grat­ed solu­tions are the key to scale oper­a­tions glob­al­ly. They allow a seam­less con­nec­tion between exist­ing ecosys­tems and new ser­vices,” says Bernd Appel, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Lufthansa Indus­try Solu­tions.

“We look for­ward to being part in this newest sec­tor of avi­a­tion. With our vast knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence we will build a unique solu­tion for Volo­copter, bring­ing to life the VoloIQ.”  

Heiko Huet­tel, Head of Auto­mo­tive EMEA at Microsoft Corp, added: “We are pleased to help make Urban Air Mobil­i­ty Ser­vices safer and more effi­cient by pro­vid­ing Azure to enable VoloIQ. They will offer changes for air taxis busi­ness­es and cus­tomers alike, offer­ing smoother and more seam­less ser­vice.