University of Miami College of Engineering launches consortium to make flying cars a reality

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Mia­mi Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing has launched the Mia­mi Engi­neer­ing Autonomous Mobil­i­ty Ini­tia­tive (MEAMI), a con­sor­tium of world-class aca­d­e­m­ic, indus­try, and gov­ern­ment part­ners.

MEAMI researchers are devel­op­ing eVTOL fly­ing cars, essen­tial­ly build­ing on research fund­ed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion, NASA, and oth­er major gov­ern­ment agen­cies.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing in MEAMI are indus­try lead­ers Eve Air Mobil­i­ty, Aeroau­to, and Ryder Sys­tem, along with non­prof­it lead­ers such as The Bea­con Coun­cil. The con­sor­tium enjoys sup­port from promi­nent pub­lic sec­tor part­ners as well such as the Depart­ments of Ener­gy, Edu­ca­tion, and Trans­porta­tion.

MEAMI aims to advance autonomous mobil­i­ty tech­nol­o­gy, from air taxis to assist­ing in quick trans­port of patients to hos­pi­tals, to rapid tran­sit from busy down­town areas to the air­port.

The con­sor­tium will inves­ti­gate advanced propul­sion, sens­ing, inte­gra­tion of satel­lite sig­nals with local sens­ing, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, clean ener­gy and ener­gy stor­age, and advanced mate­ri­als, with promi­nent fac­ul­ty mem­bers lead­ing the way. In addi­tion, issues of safe­ty, air traf­fic con­trol, reg­u­la­to­ry aspects relat­ed to noise, cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, and oth­er rel­e­vant mat­ters will also be addressed.

This ini­tia­tive will work on five ver­ti­cals focused on the next two years: Advanced Tech­no­log­i­cal Devel­op­ment, Oper­a­tions, Reg­u­la­tions and Safe­ty, Pub­lic Rela­tions, Devel­op­ment, and Advance­ment.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Miami’s vibrant and diverse aca­d­e­m­ic com­mu­ni­ty com­pris­es 12 schools and col­leges serv­ing more than 17,000 under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate stu­dents in more than 180 majors and pro­grams.

Found­ed in 1947, The Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing is ded­i­cat­ed to mak­ing a pos­i­tive impact in the world by address­ing mul­ti­ple chal­lenges in six strate­gic ini­tia­tives: advanced mate­ri­als, health engi­neer­ing, data sci­ences, space sci­ence and engi­neer­ing, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and resilience, as well as Ener­gy and Envi­ron­ment.