The Air Mobility Urban – Large Experimental Demonstration (AMU-LED) project – one of the largest European demonstrations of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) – will run trials of a range of smart city air mobility services over the next two years in several cities across Europe. Venues have been chosen in three different countries: Santiago de Compostela in Spain; Cranfield in the United Kingdom; and Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The AMU-LED project was started by the European Union, and the consortium includes 17 companies and institutions: Airbus, AirHub, Altitude Angel, ANRA Technologies, Boeing Research & Technology-Europe, Fada-Catec, Cranfield University, EHang, Enaire, Gemeente Amsterdam, Ineco, ITG, Jeppesen, NLR, Space53 and Tecnalia.
AMU-LED aims to demonstrate the safe integration of all types of drone operations in urban environments. Planned exercises include more than 100 flight hours combining different unmanned aerial systems and testing various scenarios, use cases, and applications. Tests will consist of air taxi operations, cargo transport, delivery of goods and medical equipment, inspection of infrastructures, police surveillance, and emergency services support. The project expects to demonstrate how to reduce road congestion, improve the transport of people and goods, reduce travel times, increase flexibility, reduce pollution, and reduce traffic accidents. Data obtained from the different tests will be submitted to regulatory authorities – such as the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) – with the goal of helping support the regulatory framework in the urban air mobility field.
AMU-LED is an H2020 project of the EC framed in the SESAR program (Single European Sky ATM Research). SESAR aims to ensure air traffic management modernisation in Europe, where urban air mobility (UAM) is a key element.