Urban-Air Port :: Advanced Ground Infrastructure for Advanced Air Mobility & Defence Robotics Applications

Urban-Air Port is a London-based British company pioneering advanced ground infrastructure for Advanced Air Mobility and defence robotics applications. Founded by architect and urban designer Ricky Sandhu with roots tracing back approximately eight years, Urban-Air Port designs, develops, manufactures, sells, and operates modular, rapidly deployable vertiports and autonomous systems that remove the single biggest obstacle to scaling sustainable urban air transport: ground infrastructure.

The company focuses on ultra-compact, high-capacity “Vertical Airfield” technology that enables safer, quieter, electric, and zero-emission operations for passenger air taxis and autonomous cargo drones in dense cities, at airports, and in remote or contested environments. Urban-Air Port partners include Supernal (Hyundai Motor Group) and a growing list of defence and logistics organisations. Its technology supports four core market areas: passenger air taxi services, autonomous logistics drones, disaster emergency management, and defence operations.

In 2022 Urban-Air Port successfully demonstrated the world’s first fully operational urban vertiport, Air One, in central Coventry, UK. The project, built in just 11 weeks with UK government backing, hosted over 15,000 visitors and more than 100 successful autonomous drone flights while showcasing integrated eVTOL charging, cargo and passenger handling, command and control, and non-aeronautical revenue through retail and cafés. The company aims to deliver over 200 similar facilities globally within the next few years.

Urban-Air Port’s robot-based products prominently feature robotics, AI, and autonomous systems. Its flagship product line is the Air One family of vertiports (now in NextGen form), offered in Ground, Roof, and Marine (AirOne – Water) configurations. These modular, flat-packed hubs integrate landing pads, fast charging, maintenance hangars, passenger boarding facilities, and sophisticated command-and-control suites developed in conjunction with the UK CAA. Patented Vertical Airfield technology compacts traditional airfield footprints by up to 80 percent while supporting high throughput and mitigating downwash effects. Systems are electric and off-grid capable, incorporate renewables, and enable seamless integration with ground transport.

The standout robotics offering is the Pandora series of autonomous UAV launch and logistics systems. Pandora delivers containerised, agnostic, rapidly deployable platforms for soldier-borne and large-scale operations. The compact Pandora P140 targets platoon-level use, while the larger Pandora P6240 is designed for palletised load systems and battalion-scale deployments. A vehicle-integrated Pandora Vehicle variant adds UAV capability to existing fleets such as the Jackal. Equipped with proprietary Launch Chamber technology, environmental monitoring, telemetry, and AI-driven automation, Pandora enables up to 80 percent faster multi-UAV launches with minimal personnel exposure. It supports both reusable ISR drones and one-way strike munitions, covert low-signature operations, swarm capabilities, and full sustainment packages. The system has been trialled at UK MOD Warminster facilities and unveiled at DSEI 2025.

Additional robot-enabled infrastructure includes City Box® for integrated urban cargo logistics and Docks Box®, a plug-in fulfilment centre solution for rapid cargo dispatch. Resilience One™ provides rapidly deployable, survivable micro-airfield infrastructure for disaster relief, emergency management, and defence missions, featuring built-in air traffic control suites and large command-and-control centres. Urban-Air Port is also developing VBM-AI, an intelligent AI-powered planning and simulation platform to accelerate vertiport and operations design.

All Urban-Air Port solutions emphasise modularity, reusability, low footprint, and dual-use civilian-defence applications. By combining physical infrastructure with robotics, autonomy, and digital command systems, Urban-Air Port enables the practical deployment of Advanced Air Mobility at scale.