Passenger-carrying drone ready for liftoff

  • 24/01/2017

The sky's the limit when it comes to flying vehicles, with one Chinese company ready to make human-carrying drones a reality.

The autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV) Ehang 184 has completed more than 200 successful test flights - those without crashing - and could soon be taking passengers.

It can carry a person weighing up to100kg, reach a maximum height of 3.5km ( 11,500 feet) and fly up to 65km on a single charge of the electric battery - all without the passenger having to do a thing.

The Ehang 184 weighs around 200kg (Supplied)
The Ehang 184 weighs around 200kg (Supplied)

Ehang will have its own control centre which sets and manages the vehicle's flight path.

The company says the vehicle will be able to withstand "normal" amounts of wind and different kinds of weather.

A control centre will manage and set flight paths for the AAVs (Supplied)
A control centre will manage and set flight paths for the AAVs (Supplied)

If there are "unexpected flight conditions", the ground control will be able to take the right measures to land the AAV safely.

Passengers will be in contact with ground control and will see real-time flight conditions.

The company hopes to sell the AAV for personal use or for a service similar to Uber.

But before you can get one to fly over the rush hour traffic jams, there's still a lot of red tape to get through.

Each country the company wants to operate in will need to approve the technology's use.

It has, however, been granted permission in China to set up a control centre and fly the drones though its widespread use could still be years away. 

Newshub.