Eileen Mandir

The Autonomous Human Drone Taxi — A mobility experiment testing possible bridiging technologies

2015-06 • autonomous driving, mobility, scenario, design futuring
Human taxi drone over Los Angeles
Commuter using drone taxi to Los Angeles

Will individual mobility conquer the sky? What would taxi drones look like? How would the cityscape change with flying drones?

This speculative documentary, made in collaboration with David Leonard, explores the future of mobility. It features a human drone taxi program that could soon launch in Los Angeles.

Lifting a taxi into free-float mode wasn’t our true intention in this project. Even though thinking about how this would work was very amusing. This video is the outcome of a speculative design experiment. An approach to creating a future we envision, but one that is just not quite there yet. This video helps to bridge the gap of imagination by making a far-away future tangible. Once a drone taxi is considered a future fact rather than science fiction, then a discussion about the implications of this kind of urban mobility service unfolds.

Initial Briefing

  • believable and plausible from the beginning
  • entertaining and positive, on the sunny side of hoaxes
  • thought-provoking for a wide audience
Project host:
moovel lab
People involved @ moovel lab:
Beneditk Groß, Tilman Häuser, Raphael Reimann, Eileen Mandir, Marco Berends
Collaborators:
David Leonard, Thomas Thöne, Charles Dayton, Francois Malary
Cast:
David Leonard (Correspondent), Robert Henrich (CEO), Helmuth Ritzer (CTO), Rodrigo Garcia (Amature Photographer), Nihat Kücük (Navigation Lab), Eileen Mandir (User Experience Lab), Joseph Kopser (Aviation Expert), Paul DeLong (Person on-street #2), Erica Brennes (Person on-street #2), Piper Kopser (Person on-street #3), Marco Berends (Augmented Reality Driver), moovel personnel (Team Members/Extras)

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