LAS VEGAS – Bell Textron Inc., revealed at CES its vision for a "smart city" ecosystem built around its urban air mobility (UAM) technology. The Bell Nexus air taxi and the Autonomous Pod Transport (APT) will coexist to move people, products and information across connected cities.
“With a focus on the passenger experience, we revealed the technology and the vehicle that will revolutionize transportation in cities at CES 2019; this year, we’re demonstrating what governing, operating, working and living in a smart city will look like,” said Mitch Snyder, Bell president and CEO.
In a world where nearly 70 percent of the population will be living in urban areas by 2050 and cities are outgrowing their current transportation systems, the need for UAM solutions has never been greater. Fortunately, the transportation industry has reached an inflection point, and many of the world’s top minds are working toward solutions for the optimal smart city design.
Bell's Nexus City is on display at CES 2020, including its Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Bell AerOS and Nexus 4EX.
Bell features its MaaS plans which look beyond the aircraft and demonstrate how to integrate MaaS into communities, making on-demand air mobility available to everyone - whenever they need it.
Bell’s service is powered by Bell AerOS, a proprietary system running on Microsoft Azure created to manage fleet information, observe aircraft health, and manage throughput of goods, products and predictive data and maintenance. This digital infrastructure is prevalent in Bell’s Smart City vision at the show and serves as another step in bringing connected mobility to the masses.
Bell showcases the evolution of the Bell Nexus - the Bell Nexus 4EX (Four for the number of ducted fans, E for Electric and X for experimental). The aircraft features Bell’s signature powered-lift concept with four tilting ducted fans that can be configured as hybrid-electric or all-electric. Bell believes this design unlocks the key for all electric technology, but the vehicle will remain propulsion agnostic depending on customer needs.
