The idea of individual flying vehicles isn't really new: detail of a 1951 Popular Mechanics magazine cover.
A European research program is studying the feasibility of a new kind of individual transport that avoids traffic jams by taking to the skies. Two laboratories at EPFL participate in this project. It's still in the realm of science fiction - but perhaps not for long. Soon, the "commute" between home and work may be as easy as a ride in an elevator. This is the long-term vision of the " myCopter " research project, funded via the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) for Research and Technological Development. Making helicopters as common a vehicle as cars are today might seem far-fetched. But it's based on a very serious observation: "Road infrastructures are totally saturated during rush hours, and it will soon be neither possible nor desirable to build new freeways," analyzes Heinrich Bülthoff, professor at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen (Germany) and the initiator of the myCopter project.
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