We want to be best-in-class in everything we do. So, we were looking for a best-in-class 3D solution with a long heritage of use in aviation. There was really only one choice.
Building the world's first all-electric vertical take-off and landing air taxi
In early 2023, Dubai’s Road and Transport Authority (RTA) announced that Dubai will be the first city in the world to introduce an air taxi service – a move that it believes will transform urban mobility as we know it. As soon as 2025, passengers will be able to travel from Dubai International Airport to Palm Jumeirah in just ten minutes, in an electric air taxi traveling at 200 miles per hour (322 kph). The same journey would take around 45 minutes in a car.
The company facilitating Dubai’s ambitious plans? California-based Joby Aviation. “We’re building the world’s first all-electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) air taxi,” said Eric Allison, Joby Aviation’s chief product officer. “Our aircraft can take off vertically like a helicopter, and then fly like an airplane. It can hold four passengers and a commercially rated pilot. It will transform how we move around – integrating into mobility-as-a-service so, you can open an app on your phone, select ‘Joby’ through our app or via one of our partners, and then get to where you want to go faster than any other way.”
Joby engineered its entire operations from the ground up, by leveraging Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE® platform from the outset. “We want to be best-in-class in everything we do,” Allison said. “So, we were looking for a best-in-class 3D solution with a long heritage of use in aviation. There was really only one choice.”
Meeting complex certification criteria
Building an eVTOL aircraft certified for commercial flight is no mean feat. It has taken Joby 15 years of engineering, prototyping and refinement as well as close collaboration with industry leaders such as NASA and Toyota. The company also works with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on how to bring this new technology – which is a set of new technologies – to the market in the most expedient and safest way possible, adhering to the regulator’s high standards.
“To launch this service and to make it possible to move in this transformational way, we have to certify our aircraft,” Allison said. But this isn’t a simple process. “We have to certify electric motors. We have to certify the battery systems. We have to certify the fly-by-wire electronics that enable pilots to fly these amazing new machines. That’s a lot of work. We have to work with the regulators to define the safety requirements for this new class of technologies. We have to define how we’re going to meet those safety requirements. And then we have to work on all of the myriad of tests, all of the test plans, all of the things we have to do to show compliance with that set of rules that we’ve agreed with the regulators. We’re deep into that process right now.”
Joby couldn’t achieve what it has to date without adopting the 3DEXPERIENCE platform as a collaborative environment, through which it carries out a range of activities such as composite design, additive manufacturing, verification through simulation, data management and more. “Dassault Systèmes has been a fantastic partner,” Allison said. “Our entire digital engineering is built around its 3DEXPERIENCE platform, and we are doing all of our design work in CATIA. We are tracking all of our engineering data in ENOVIA.”
A collaborative route to success
With the 3DEXPERIENCE platform offering digital continuity from concept to flight, Joby takes a vertically integrated approach to designing and manufacturing its aircraft. “That means we have engineers working across different disciplines,” Allison said. “We’ve got engineers working in composite structures. We have engineers working in small electronics. We have engineers working in motor design, battery design, and integrated vehicle design. We have to bring all of those disciplines together.”
The 3DEXPERIENCE platform enables Joby to do just that, and then allows it to connect engineering to manufacturing so that it generates the required data to not only transmit to its manufacturing systems and build its amazing aircraft, but also enable full traceability.
“This is really a big advantage for us, that we have a best-in-class system that we can use to track, manage and ultimately act on, manufacture and bring to market what started out as data and turns into the real world,” Allison said. “To create world-class technology, you have to use world-class technology.” With the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, that’s precisely what Joby has got.
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Eric Allison, Chief Product Officer, Joby Aviation:
To create world-class technology, you've got to use world-class technology. At Joby, we're building the world's first all-electric vertical takeoff and landing air taxi. Our aircraft can hold four passengers. It has a commercially rated pilot, and can transform the way we move around by being integrated into mobility as a service. In order to launch this service, we have to certify our aircraft. So we're working hard with the FAA on how do we bring this set of new technologies to the market in the most expedient and safe way possible, adhering to the high standards of the regulator. Our entire digital engineering is built around Dassault Systemes 3DX platform. So we are doing all of our design in CATIA. We are tracking all of our engineering data in ENOVIA. This is really a big advantage for us, that we have a best-in-class system that we can use to track, manage, and, ultimately, act on, manufacture, bring to market what starts out as data and turns into the real world. Joby has taken a vertically integrated approach to design and manufacture our aircraft. We have to bring all disciplines together and the platform allows us to do that, be able to build and create these amazing machines that we're designing. Dassault has been a fantastic partner. We want to be best-in-class in everything we do. So we were looking for a best-in-class 3D solution with a long heritage of use in aviation and there was really only one choice.
Focus on Joby Aviation
Joby Aviation is a California-based transportation company developing an all-electric, vertical take-off and landing air taxi that it intends to operate as part of a fast, quiet and convenient service in cities worldwide. The has completed more than 33,000 miles of test flight, including more than 100 flights with a pilot onboard. Joby also completed the first electric air taxi exhibition flights in New York City, when it flew from the Manhattan Downtown Heliport over the Hudson River in November 2023.
For more information: https://jobyaviation.com