Automated flying devices, so-called drones, oscillate in their public perception between imaginations of fascinating hobbies, threatening weapons and futuristic ideas of air cabs. While the latter vision had no actual application use in recent years, film and photo drones by private amateur pilots as well as drones in professional civilian use have long been a given fact.

In the 33rd episode of their podcast Digitalgespräch, physicist and philosopher of technology Marlene Görger, who is also the director of the Centre Responsible Digitality (ZEVEDI), and philosopher Petra Gehring of TU Darmstadt discuss current potentials of drones with emergenCITY PI Uwe Klingauf. Klingauf, who holds the professorship for Flight Systems and Automatic Control at TU Darmstadt, addresses current trends and exciting challenges in research and development, focusing on the intersection of technical, regulatory and infrastructural challenges.

The fact that airspace and air traffic are changing due to the application and possibilities of digitality is taken as a starting point by Gröger, Gehring and Klingauf to talk about concrete questions in the fields of current research and in the future development of flight devices: How can automated flight devices be integrated into air traffic control? What does piloting of aerial vehicles look like in the meantime? What are the challenges of unmanned air traffic? And what has happened to the hype surrounding parcel drones and air cabs?

The podcast is available here, as well as on various known podcast and streaming apps.