Abstract: An aircraft can include a stacked propeller to generate lift during assent and descent. The stacked propeller includes a first propeller and a second propeller that co-rotate about an axis of rotation. In one embodiment, the blades are coupled to a rotor mast that contains an internal cavity. In one mode of operation, the first propeller and/or the second propeller can be stored in the internal cavity in order to reduce drag during flight. The aircraft can include one or more stacked propellers, such as a port propeller and a starboard propeller, which rotate in opposite directions during one or more modes of flight.

Abstract: The present application describes a payload management system that routes a payload item associated with an individual from an origin to a destination. In some examples, the payload item is routed from the origin to the destination separate from a travel itinerary associated with the individual. For example, the payload item can be routed via a vehicle other than a VTOL aircraft that is assigned to the individual for a multi-modal transportation service.

Abstract: A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft provides transportation to users of a network system. The network system may include multiple aircraft or other types of vehicles to provide multi-model transportation. An aircraft may include a fuselage, a truss coupled to the fuselage, and multiple distributed electric propellers coupled to the truss. The distributed electric propellers may be positioned on at least two different planes. The fuselage may include a cabin having one or more seats for the passengers arranged in a configuration that has a compact footprint, provides legroom, provides visibility to surroundings of the aircraft, or facilitates convenient ingress or egress of passengers. The aircraft may open a port cabin door and starboard cabin door for simultaneous ingress or egress of passengers.

Abstract: A request for transport services that identifies a rider, an origin, and a destination is received from a client device. Eligibility of the request to be serviced by a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is determined based on the origin and the destination. A transportation system determines a first and a second hub for a leg of the transport request serviced by the VTOL aircraft and calculates a set of candidate routes from the first hub to the second hub. A provisioned route is selected from among the set of candidate routes based on network and environmental parameters and objectives including pre-determined acceptable noise levels, weather, and the presence and planned routes of other VTOL aircrafts along each of the candidate routes.

Abstract: A vertical landing and take-off aircraft VTOL transitions from a vertical takeoff state to a cruise state where the vertical takeoff state uses propellers to generate lift and the cruise state uses wings to generate lift. The aircraft has an M-wing configuration with propellers located on the wingtip nacelles, wing booms, and tail boom. The wing boom and/or the tail boom can include boom control effectors. Hinged control surfaces on the wings, tail boom, and tail tilt during takeoff and landing to yaw the vehicle. The boom control effectors, cruise propellers, stacked propellers, and control surfaces can have different positions during different modes of operation in order to control aircraft movement and mitigate noise generated by the aircraft.

Abstract: A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft provides transportation to users of a network system. The network system may include multiple aircraft or other types of vehicles to provide multi-model transportation. An aircraft may include a fuselage, a truss coupled to the fuselage, and multiple distributed electric propellers coupled to the truss. The distributed electric propellers may be positioned on at least two different planes. The fuselage may include a cabin having one or more seats for the passengers arranged in a configuration that has a compact footprint, provides legroom, provides visibility to surroundings of the aircraft, or facilitates convenient ingress or egress of passengers. The aircraft may open a port cabin door and starboard cabin door for simultaneous ingress or egress of passengers.

Abstract: Systems and methods for communicating aircraft sensory cues are provided. A method can include obtaining aerial vehicle data and facility data for an aerial portion of a multi-modal transportation service. The method can include determining a plurality of sensory cues indicative of information for the aerial portion of the transportation service such as a safe path across a landing pad of the facility, a seating assignment for a passenger, etc. The method can include communicating sensory data indicative of the plurality of sensory cues to at least one of a facility computing system associated with the facility or an aerial computing system associated with the at least one aerial vehicle. The facility computing system and/or aerial computing system can output the sensory cue(s) to at least one passenger or operator of the aerial portion of the multi-modal transportation service in, for example, the facility's landing area.

Abstract: A network system, such as a transport management system, uses augmented reality (AR) to identify an approaching vehicle. Responsive to receiving a trip request, a trip management module matches the rider with an available driver and instructs a trip monitoring module to monitor the location of the driver's vehicle as it travels to the pickup location. When the driver's vehicle is within a threshold distance of the pickup location, an AR control module instructs the rider client device to begin a live video stream and instructs an image recognition module to monitor the video stream for the driver's vehicle. Responsive to the driver's vehicle entering the field of view of the camera on the rider client device, the AR control module selects computer-generated AR elements and instructs the rider client device to visually augment the video stream to identify the driver's vehicle as it approaches the pickup location.

Abstract: Disclosed are embodiments for employing off board sensors to augment data used by a ground based autonomous vehicle. In some aspects, the off-board sensors may be positioned on another autonomous vehicle, such as an aerial autonomous vehicle (AAV). The disclosed embodiments determine uncertainty scores associated with ground regions. The uncertainty scores indicate a need to reimage the ground regions. An AAV may be tasked to reimage a region having a relatively high uncertainty score, depending on a cost associated with the tasking.

Abstract: Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft can provide opportunities to incorporate aerial transportation into transportation networks for cities and metropolitan areas. However, VTOL aircraft can be sensitive to uneven weight distributions, e.g., the payload of an aircraft is primarily loaded in the front, back, left, or right. When the aircraft is loaded unevenly, the center of mass of the aircraft may shift substantially enough to negatively impact performance of the aircraft. Thus, in turn, there is an opportunity that the VTOL may be loaded unevenly if seating, luggage placement, and/or positions of internal components are not coordinated. Among other advantages, dynamically assigning the payloads and adjusting components of the VTOL aircraft can increase VTOL safety by ensuring the VTOL aircraft is loaded evenly and meets all weight requirements; can increase transportation efficiency by increasing rider throughput; and can increase the availability of the VTOL services to all potential riders.

Abstract: A network system, such as a transport management system, uses augmented reality (AR) to identify an approaching vehicle. Responsive to receiving a trip request, a trip management module matches the rider with an available driver and instructs a trip monitoring module to monitor the location of the driver's vehicle as it travels to the pickup location. When the driver's vehicle is within a threshold distance of the pickup location, an AR control module instructs the rider client device to begin a live video stream and instructs an image recognition module to monitor the video stream for the driver's vehicle. Responsive to the driver's vehicle entering the field of view of the camera on the rider client device, the AR control module selects computer-generated AR elements and instructs the rider client device to visually augment the video stream to identify the driver's vehicle as it approaches the pickup location.

Abstract: A network system, such as a transport management system, uses augmented reality (AR) to identify an approaching vehicle. Responsive to receiving a trip request, a trip management module matches the rider with an available driver and instructs a trip monitoring module to monitor the location of the driver's vehicle as it travels to the pickup location. When the driver's vehicle is within a threshold distance of the pickup location, an AR control module instructs the rider client device to begin a live video stream and instructs an image recognition module to monitor the video stream for the driver's vehicle. Responsive to the driver's vehicle entering the field of view of the camera on the rider client device, the AR control module selects computer-generated AR elements and instructs the rider client device to visually augment the video stream to identify the driver's vehicle as it approaches the pickup location.

Abstract: Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft can provide opportunities to incorporate aerial transportation into transportation networks for cities and metropolitan areas. However, VTOL aircraft can be sensitive to uneven weight distributions, e.g., the payload of an aircraft is primarily loaded in the front, back, left, or right. When the aircraft is loaded unevenly, the center of mass of the aircraft may shift substantially enough to negatively impact performance of the aircraft. Thus, in turn, there is an opportunity that the VTOL may be loaded unevenly if seating and/or luggage placement is not coordinated. Among other advantages, dynamically assigning the VTOL aircraft payloads can increase VTOL safety by ensuring the VTOL aircraft is loaded evenly and meets all weight requirements; can increase transportation efficiency by increasing rider throughput; and can increase the availability of the VTOL services to all potential riders.

Abstract: Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft can provide opportunities to incorporate aerial transportation into transportation networks for cities and metropolitan areas. However, VTOL aircraft can be sensitive to uneven weight distributions, e.g., the payload of an aircraft is primarily loaded in the front, back, left, or right. When the aircraft is loaded unevenly, the center of mass of the aircraft may shift substantially enough to negatively impact performance of the aircraft. Thus, in turn, there is an opportunity that the VTOL may be loaded unevenly if seating and/or luggage placement is not coordinated. Among other advantages, dynamically assigning the VTOL aircraft payloads can increase VTOL safety by ensuring the VTOL aircraft is loaded evenly and meets all weight requirements; can increase transportation efficiency by increasing rider throughput; and can increase the availability of the VTOL services to all potential riders.

Abstract: Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft can provide opportunities to incorporate aerial transportation into transportation networks for cities and metropolitan areas. However, VTOL aircraft can be sensitive to uneven weight distributions, e.g., the payload of an aircraft is primarily loaded in the front, back, left, or right. When the aircraft is loaded unevenly, the center of mass of the aircraft may shift substantially enough to negatively impact performance of the aircraft. Thus, in turn, there is an opportunity that the VTOL may be loaded unevenly if seating and/or luggage placement is not coordinated. Among other advantages, dynamically assigning the VTOL aircraft payloads can increase VTOL safety by ensuring the VTOL aircraft is loaded evenly and meets all weight requirements; can increase transportation efficiency by increasing rider throughput; and can increase the availability of the VTOL services to all potential riders.

Abstract: A network system, such as a transport management system, uses augmented reality (AR) to identify an approaching vehicle. Responsive to receiving a trip request, a trip management module matches the rider with an available driver and instructs a trip monitoring module to monitor the location of the driver's vehicle as it travels to the pickup location. When the driver's vehicle is within a threshold distance of the pickup location, an AR control module instructs the rider client device to begin a live video stream and instructs an image recognition module to monitor the video stream for the driver's vehicle. Responsive to the driver's vehicle entering the field of view of the camera on the rider client device, the AR control module selects computer-generated AR elements and instructs the rider client device to visually augment the video stream to identify the driver's vehicle as it approaches the pickup location.

Abstract: An aircraft with a forward swept wing is configured to transition between vertical flight and forward flight. The aircraft includes propellers attached laterally along the wing. The propellers may be stacked propellers with two or more co-rotating rotors. The aircraft also includes booms attached along the wing and at each free end of the wing. The booms can include boom control effectors configured to direct airflow below a propeller. The aircraft includes one or more cruise propellers, configured to operate during forward flight to generate lift. The aircraft can also include control surfaces on the wings and tail that may tilt during takeoff and landing to yaw the vehicle.

Abstract: A computing system for landing and storing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft can be configured to receive aircraft data, passenger data, or environment data associated with a VTOL aircraft and determine a landing pad location within a landing facility based on the aircraft data, passenger data, and/or environment data. The landing facility can include a lower level and an upper level. The lower level can include a lower landing area and a lower storage area. The upper level can include an upper landing area. At least a portion of the upper level can be arranged over the lower storage area. The landing pad location can include a location within the lower landing area or the upper landing area of the landing facility. The computing system can communicate the landing pad location to an operator or a navigation system of the VTOL aircraft.

Abstract: A request for transport services that identifies a rider, an origin, and a destination is received from a client device. Eligibility of the request to be serviced by a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is determined based on the origin and the destination. The client device is sent an itinerary for servicing the transport request including a leg serviced by the VTOL aircraft. Confirmation is received that the rider has boarded the VTOL aircraft and determination made as to whether the VTOL aircraft should wait for additional riders. Instruction are sent to the VTOL aircraft to take-off if one or more conditions are met.

Abstract: Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft can provide opportunities to incorporate aerial transportation into transportation networks for cities and metropolitan areas. However, VTOL aircraft can be sensitive to uneven weight distributions, e.g., the payload of an aircraft is primarily loaded in the front, back, left, or right. When the aircraft is loaded unevenly, the center of mass of the aircraft may shift substantially enough to negatively impact performance of the aircraft. Thus, in turn, there is an opportunity that the VTOL may be loaded unevenly if seating and/or luggage placement is not coordinated. Among other advantages, dynamically assigning the VTOL aircraft payloads can increase VTOL safety by ensuring the VTOL aircraft is loaded evenly and meets all weight requirements; can increase transportation efficiency by increasing rider throughput; and can increase the availability of the VTOL services to all potential riders.