FIA2024: Urban-Air Port & LG Unveil “Next Generation Vertiport, Integrating World’s First AI-Enabled Systems”

Dur­ing Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air Show (FIA) last week, Urban-Air Port (UAP) released its indus­try-lead­ing next-gen­er­a­tion ver­ti­port (AirOne), that brings togeth­er UAP’s advanced robot­ic sys­tems and LG Elec­tron­ics’ AI-pow­ered tech­nolo­gies, reports a press release. 

In March, the two com­pa­nies announced a col­lab­o­ra­tion “to pow­er up a new gen­er­a­tion of ver­ti­ports”, an alliance that sig­nalled LG’s move into the advanced mobil­i­ty field. 

“The part­ner­ship pre­sent­ed their ful­ly dig­i­tal­ly inte­grat­ed next-gen­er­a­tion ver­ti­port,” explains the release. “It is the world’s most advanced solu­tion, the first to incor­po­rate AI-enabled sys­tems and merges cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy with cus­tomer-cen­tric designs to define the future of air trav­el.”

It goes on, “The two com­pa­nies are devel­op­ing mod­u­lar sta­tions that inte­grate an ecosys­tem of advanced dig­i­tal solu­tions, includ­ing adap­tive LED sig­nage and trans­par­ent OLED dis­plays, inter­ac­tive kiosks and com­pre­hen­sive dig­i­tal man­age­ment and con­trol sys­tems.”

Adding, “From opti­mised process­es to immer­sive art instal­la­tions and seam­less dig­i­tal inter­faces, the UAP & LG mod­u­lar sys­tem brings a smarter, more engag­ing and per­son­alised trav­el expe­ri­ence. The design includes fea­tures such as bio­met­ric check-in, inter­ac­tive lounges, EV-charg­ing hubs and retail stands with dynam­ic LED walls that change con­tent based on occu­pan­cy, improv­ing eco­nom­ic and spa­tial effi­cien­cy.”

The com­pa­nies believe this is the world’s most advanced ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture stack and that AirOne is com­mer­cial­ly viable.

Urban-Air Ports’ Ai Enabled Next Gen­er­a­tion Ver­ti­port — Exte­ri­or View

Ricky Sand­hu, Founder and Exec­u­tive Chair­man of UAP, enthused, “We are now the world’s first AI & robot­ics ver­ti­port com­pa­ny. This com­bi­na­tion of design, tech­nol­o­gy and user expe­ri­ence is unri­valled and sets a new glob­al bench­mark for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty eVTOL and ver­ti­port oper­a­tors.” 

He con­tin­ued, “We are deliv­er­ing the new gold stan­dard that presents a viable, afford­able, but tru­ly sus­tain­able solu­tion to ensure this indus­try can take flight prof­itably.”

The vertiport’s ful­ly inte­grat­ed archi­tec­ture and mod­u­lar sys­tem are designed to sup­port ear­ly entry into ser­vice capac­i­ties, while also future-proof­ing demand for more VTOLs and increased through­put as the indus­try matures. The com­pa­nies say “it is viable, afford­able, scal­able and the most effi­cient way to launch an elec­tric and/or hybrid VTOL ser­vice.” 

Sea­mus Walsh, LG’s Enter­prise Man­ag­er for Ener­gy, Indus­try & Mobil­i­ty, remarked, “This next-gen­er­a­tion ver­ti­port design show­cas­es the lat­est tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments to cre­ate a com­plete sys­tem that is mod­u­lar and scal­able, with an unri­valled pas­sen­ger and oper­a­tor expe­ri­ence. Our AI-pow­ered tech­nolo­gies will help con­vert foot­fall to rev­enue, and ensure max­i­mum effi­cien­cy of oper­a­tions.” 

He con­tin­ued, “We have opti­mised every mod­u­lar ele­ment to com­bine the most cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy while retain­ing a very human inter­ac­tiv­i­ty and emo­tion­al heart­beat.”

The sys­tem pro­vides oper­a­tors with a sophis­ti­cat­ed infra­struc­ture stack with­in an 80 per­cent small­er foot­print, at 50 per­cent less cost to install and prof­itable oper­a­tions with pay-back times faster than any com­pet­ing sys­tem. With in-built LG tech­nolo­gies, oper­a­tors are eas­i­ly able to realise non-aero­nau­ti­cal rev­enues on the Urban-Air Port’s very small foot­print.

Urban-Air Ports’ Inte­ri­or View of their Ver­ti­cal Air­field from the Inte­grat­ed, Adja­cent & Seam­less Air­craft Hangar with MRO and Charg­ing

Andrea Wu, CEO of Urban-Air Port, point­ed out, “Our unique tech­nol­o­gy, anchored by our robot­ic Ver­ti­cal Air­field and stacked hangar sys­tem, enables us to design, build and oper­ate our ver­ti­ports at a much low­er capex than a tra­di­tion­al ground-based, space-hun­gry hor­i­zon­tal ver­ti­port. Our Ver­ti­cal Air­field tech­nol­o­gy allows us to secure sites up to 80 per­cent small­er, dra­mat­i­cal­ly cut­ting costs, but also enhanc­ing the pas­sen­ger through­put, expe­ri­ence and safe­ty.”

She con­tin­ued, “With built-in sys­tems, we can reduce the effects of eVTOL down­wash and out­wash. This means we can install our ver­ti­ports across our net­works in urban loca­tions safe­ly. With LG, we are proud to lead the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty infra­struc­ture sec­tor into the AI and robot­ics era. We have always led the field in inno­va­tion – this is no dif­fer­ent.”

To counter oper­a­tional costs and facil­i­tate afford­able eVTOL trav­el for all, UAP has devel­oped the start of a com­mer­cial ecosys­tem under the ban­ner Urban-Air Choice. This is con­trolled via an app. 

By part­ner­ing with some of the world’s biggest brands and util­is­ing LG’s advanced dig­i­tal solu­tions, it hopes to serve a new gen­er­a­tion of trav­ellers with a more con­nect­ed, intu­itive, seam­less and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble expe­ri­ence, par­tic­u­lar­ly for retail and hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

Kei­th Hunter, Chief Retail Offi­cer of Urban-Air Port, com­ment­ed, “Our part­ners at LG are aligned with our vision to give cus­tomers the con­trol and flex­i­bil­i­ty they expect when they engage with our retail part­ners and ser­vices. By har­ness­ing the func­tion­al­i­ty of the inno­v­a­tive dig­i­tal solu­tions of LG, we can go way beyond tra­di­tion­al, cum­ber­some com­mer­cial offers, lever­ag­ing the full poten­tial of non-aero­nau­ti­cal rev­enue oppor­tu­ni­ties that can exist with­in our infra­struc­ture. Urban-Air Choice will be able to com­ple­ment the phys­i­cal offer with dig­i­tal solu­tions.”

The col­lab­o­ra­tion aims to lever­age inno­v­a­tive data-dri­ven man­age­ment sys­tems, includ­ing:-

: LG CLOi Robots to enhance oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy. 

: LG Busi­ness Cloud Solu­tions for remote man­age­ment of dig­i­tal sig­nage. 

: LG’s advanced ener­gy stor­age solu­tions for reli­able and effi­cient UAM oper­a­tions.

:  A host of con­trol room inno­va­tions, rang­ing from com­pre­hen­sive mon­i­tor­ing and data col­lec­tion for improved flight book­ings to smart build­ing man­age­ment.

Urban-Air Ports’ Self-Check-In Lounge Pow­ered by LG.  Inte­ri­or View of a Depart­ing Pas­sen­ger

Lawrence Blake­ley, Non-Exec­u­tive Advi­sor, Urban-Air Port, con­clud­ed, “Future eVTOL oper­a­tions will demand fast charg­ing capa­bil­i­ties of mul­ti­ple MegaWatts to meet indus­try expec­ta­tions for air­craft turn­around times, mak­ing the charg­ing infra­struc­ture solu­tion one of the most cru­cial ele­ments. By part­ner­ing, UAP and LG are com­bin­ing their strengths as world lead­ers to offer a top-tier solu­tion to these oper­a­tional chal­lenges. LG’s cut­ting-edge oper­a­tional sys­tems, paired with UAP’s patent­ed AirOne solu­tion, will trans­form the AAM indus­try.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.urbanairport.com

https://www.lg.com/content/dam/lge/global/sustainability/pdf/2023–2024_Sustainability_Report_(ENG).pdf

(Top image: Urban-Air Ports’ robot­ic Ver­ti­cal Air­field for VTOL air­craft with inte­grat­ed LG tech­nolo­gies — Exte­ri­or View)

(Images Cred­it: UAP & LG)

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