Watch: Ehang’s 184 in Manned Flight Tests

Things went quiet concerning Ehang for some time. At one stage it even appeared that the corporate had gone out of enterprise, however DroneLife was instructed that as an alternative, the Chinese producer was to shift focus – like a lot of DJI’s shopper rivals have needed to – towards business efforts.

Among these efforts has all the time been Ehang’s assertion mission, the 184 passenger drone, which was unveiled at CES 2016. The final thing we heard, officers in Dubai had chosen to work with Intel-backed Volocopter forward of Ehang.

But this week the corporate has launched a significant replace on the progress of the 184. Ehang’s passenger drone has undergone intensive testing, together with over 1,000 manned take a look at flights. Even the CEO has been for a trip, as you’ll be able to see in the video beneath…

This is thrilling progress from Ehang. The 184 seems to be unimaginable in motion, and it’s clear the CEO is taking the event personally.

Ehang CEO Huazhi Hu stated: “Performing manned test flights enables us to demonstrate the safety and stability of our vehicles,” Hu stated. “What we’re doing isn’t an extreme sport, so the safety of each passenger always comes first. Now that we’ve successfully tested the EHANG 184, I’m really excited to see what the future holds for us in terms of air mobility.”

So far, greater than 150 technical engineers have performed 1000’s of take a look at flights. According to Ehang, these have included a vertical climbing take a look at as much as 300m, a loaded take a look at flight carrying roughly 230 kg, a route-based take a look at flight overlaying 15km, and a high-speed cruising take a look at at 130km/h.

In a press release, the corporate has prompt that extra enhancements are in the pipeline, which look set to offer passengers extra management over the 184’s flight:

The EHANG 184 AAV will nonetheless see additional enhancements. More emphasis can be positioned on bettering passenger expertise and on including an elective guide management, giving passengers with piloting expertise the selection to function the car manually. In addition, the corporate has already developed and examined a 2-seat AAV with a payload of as much as 280 kg.

The massive query stays: When will the 184 passenger drone be able to go mainstream? The firm has permission to check in the United States however any main adoption – notably for public use – seems to be unlikely in the close to future.

“This is a step-by-step course of,” stated Hu, “and at Ehang, we have our own roadmap. When it comes to the development and application of any transformative technology, first the technological innovation makes an impact, then the relevant policies are created and developed. This goes on to push further development of the industry.”