Anne Papenfuss

The technology of unmanned aerial vehicles (i.e., civilian drones) continues to improve and concepts of operations are being developed. Against this background, the importance of public acceptance has grown and the number of studies on the subject has increased in recent years. In this context and as a follow-up to the study by Eißfeldt and colleagues (Eißfeldt et al. in CEAS Aeronaut. J. 11:665–676, 2020), a representative telephone survey on the acceptance of civilian drones in Germany was conducted at the end of 2022. In addition to re-evaluating the attitude towards civilian drones in general, the current study particularly examined the use case of air taxis. It was found that the attitude towards civilian drones tended to be slightly more positive than in the first study. For air taxis, attitudes were revealed to be relatively balanced, with a slight negative tendency. Moreover, extensive inferential statistical analyses showed several factors such as active experience with drones, general sensitivity to noise, and interest in environmental protection to be significantly associated with the attitudes towards civilian drones and air taxis. The application of three different prediction models revealed that a person’s attitude towards civilian drones could be predicted with up to 71% accuracy by drone-related concerns. In this context, concerns about the violation of privacy and animal welfare had the highest predictive value. In sum, the current study provides a comprehensive overview on the acceptance of civilian drones and air taxis in Germany. Its findings underline that citizens’ opinions and concerns must be considered when designing future air mobility concepts.

For the successful development and implementation of novel concepts and technology, the acceptance of potential users is crucial. Therefore, within the project HorizonUAM of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), we investigated passengers’ acceptance of air taxis. One challenge is that not many people have real experiences with urban air mobility (UAM) at the moment and thus requirements formulated by potential users refer to rather abstract concepts. To allow participants to gain realistic impressions of UAM concepts, a mixed reality (MR) Air Taxi Simulator was set up. In a study, 30 participants experienced an inner-city business shuttle flight. We assessed the influence of another person on board on wellbeing and information needs in nominal (experiment 1) and non-nominal situations (experiment 2). For the latter, participants experienced a re-routing of the flight due to landing side unavailability. During and after the flights, participants answered questionnaires and extensive interviews were conducted. The study produced empirical data on relevant factors regarding interaction, information needs, and comfort within an air taxi. The findings show that passengers want to be informed about intentions of the vehicle. The presence of a flight attendant on board is not necessary but can increase wellbeing especially during non-nominal situations.

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is a new air transportation system for passengers and cargo in urban environments, enabled by new technologies and integrated into multimodal transportation systems. The vision of UAM comprises the mass use in urban and suburban environments, complementing existing transportation systems and contributing to the decarbonization of the transport sector. Initial attempts to create a market for urban air transportation in the last century failed due to lack of profitability and community acceptance. Technological advances in numerous fields over the past few decades have led to a renewed interest in urban air transportation. UAM is expected to benefit users and to also have a positive impact on the economy by creating new markets and employment opportunities for manufacturing and operation of UAM vehicles and the construction of related ground infrastructure. However, there are also concerns about noise, safety and security, privacy and environmental impacts. Therefore, the UAM system needs to be designed carefully to become safe, affordable, accessible, environmentally friendly, economically viable and thus sustainable. This paper provides an overview of selected key research topics related to UAM and how the German Aerospace Center (DLR) contributed to this research in the project "HorizonUAM - Urban Air Mobility Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR)". Selected research results on the topics of market potential and public acceptance, vehicle design (including battery degradation, onboard systems, cabin design, cabin simulation), infrastructure, operations (including U-space, safe autonomy, navigation, communication, cost modeling) and overall system modeling are briefly presented.

This study investigated the public acceptance of drones in six European countries. For this purpose, an online questionnaire was created, which was completed by 2998 participants. The general attitude towards drones, concerns, approval for different use cases, minimum tolerable flight altitude, acceptable flight areas, and the impact of personal and demographic attributes on drone acceptance were analyzed. Overall, attitudes towards drones were quite positive in the entire sample and even improved slightly in a second measurement at the end of the questionnaire. However, the results also show that acceptance strongly depends on the use case. Drones for civil and public applications are more widely accepted than those for private and commercial applications. Moreover, the population still has high concerns about privacy and safety. Knowledge about drones, interest in technologies, and age proved essential to predicting acceptance. Thus, tailored communication strategies, for example, through social media, can enhance public awareness and acceptance.