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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2018

Urban Air Mobility Airspace Integration Concepts and Considerations

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) - defined as safe and efficient air traffic operations in a metropolitan area for manned aircraft and unmanned aircraft systems - is being researched and developed by industry, academia, and government. Significant resources have been invested toward cultivating an ecosystem for Urban Air Mobility that includes manufacturers of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, builders of takeoff and landing areas, and researchers of the airspace integration concepts, technologies, and procedures needed to conduct Urban Air Mobility operations safely and efficiently alongside other airspace users. This paper provides high-level descriptions of both emergent and early expanded operational concepts for Urban Air Mobility that NASA is developing. The scope of this work is defined in terms of missions, aircraft, airspace, and hazards. Past and current Urban Air Mobility operations are also reviewed, and the considerations for the data exchange architecture and communication, navigation, and surveillance requirements are also discussed. This paper will serve as a starting point to develop a framework for NASA's Urban Air Mobility airspace integration research and development efforts with partners and stakeholders that could include fast-time simulations, human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulations, and flight demonstrations.

airspace integration↗
NASA NTRS2019

Ground Risk Assessment Service Provider (GRASP) Development Effort as a Supplemental Data Service Provider (SDSP) for Urban Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Operations

NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) project aims to enable the integration of new aviation paradigms such as Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) while providing the necessary infrastructure for future concepts such as On-Demand Mobility (ODM) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations in the National Airspace System (NAS). In order to do so, the UTM project has developed an architecture to allow communication among UAS operators, UAS Service Suppliers (USS), Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSP), and the public. As part of this framework, the Supplemental Data Service Providers (SDSP) are envisioned as model and/or data based services that disseminate essential or enhanced information to ensure safe operations within low-altitude airspace. These services include terrain and obstacle data, specialized weather data, surveillance, constraint information, risk monitoring, etc. This paper highlights the development efforts of a non-participant casualty risk assessment SDSP called Ground Risk Assessment Service Provider (GRASP) which assists operators with preflight planning. GRASP is based on the previously introduced UTM Risk Assessment Framework (URAF) and allows UAS operators to simulate and visualize potential non-participant casualty risks associated with their proposed flight. The risk assessment capability also allows operators to revise their flight plans if the casualty risks are determined to be above acceptable thresholds. GRASP is configured to account for future improvements including servicing airborne aircraft as part of NASA’s System-Wide Safety (SWS) project.

Ancel, Ersin↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Designing a Distributed Web-based Simulation Environment for Enabling Autonomous Systems Research

In the continued pursuit of creating a future with robust Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations defined as safe and efficient air traffic operations in metropolitan environments for both piloted and autonomous systems, development of the concepts, technologies, and procedures to establish this UAM ecosystem remains an active area of research. In particular, as autonomous systems continue to grow in both complexity and use throughout UAM concepts the need for simulation environments to both test individual components and systems and to study the complex interactions between them is paramount. In this paper we address design considerations, technologies, and challenges of adapting native simulation environment application concepts to an interactive and distributed web-based framework. The proposed web-based design allows for easier and wider access for developing, testing, integrating, and studying emergent behaviors of complex autonomous systems interaction. We demonstrate the utility of the proposed approach by showing multi-agent interaction and emergent behavior in two scenarios: (1) autonomous urban air mobility vehicles flying in a convoy and (2) interaction of a convoy with a search and rescue operation.

Benjamin N Kelley↗
NASA NTRS2020

Adaptive Airborne Separation to Enable UAM Autonomy in Mixed Airspace

The excitement and promise generated by Urban Air Mobility (UAM) concepts have inspired both new entrants and large aerospace companies throughout the world to invest hundreds of millions in research and development of air vehicles, both piloted and unpiloted, to fulfill these dreams. The management and separation of all these new aircraft have received much less attention, however, and even though NASA’s lead is advancing some promising concepts for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), most operations today are limited to line of sight with the vehicle, airspace reservation and geofencing of individual flights. Various schemes have been proposed to control this new traffic, some modeled after conventional air traffic control and some proposing fully automatic management, either from a ground-based entity or carried out on board among the vehicles themselves. Previous work has examined vehicle-based traffic management in the very low altitude airspace within a metroplex called UTM airspace in which piloted traffic is rare. A management scheme was proposed in that work that takes advantage of the homogeneous nature of the traffic operating in UTM airspace. This paper expands that concept to include a traffic management plan usable at all altitudes desired for electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing urban and short-distance, inter-city transportation. The interactions with piloted aircraft operating under both visual and instrument flight rules are analyzed, and the role of Air Traffic Control services in the postulated mixed traffic environment is covered. Separation values that adapt to each type of traffic encounter are proposed, and the relationship between required airborne surveillance range and closure speed is given. Finally, realistic scenarios are presented illustrating how this concept can reliably handle the density and traffic mix that fully implemented and successful UAM operations would entail.

Cotton, William B.↗
NASA NTRS2023

Safety Case for Small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (sUAS) Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) Operations at NASA Langley Research Center

This Technical Memorandum (TM) is written to provide for dissemination of the methods and safety considerations for operations of small Uncrewed Aerial Systems (sUAS) Beyond Visual Line-of-Sight (BVLOS)at NASA Langley Research Center. It includes the Safety Case used to acquire a BVLOS Certificate of Authorization (COA) from the FAA and is being published to enable others to benefit from this work. The intended operations, subject to approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), will include a combination of Within Visual Line of Sight (WVLOS) and Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flights, comprising of at most five sUAS operating concurrently, with no more than three operating BVLOS. Flights will occur in a subset of the Langley Air Force Base (LAFB) Class D airspace (KLFI) at a maximum altitude of 400 ft AGL. Most operations within this subset will take place in the City Environment Range Testing for Autonomous Integrated Navigation (CERTAIN) Range. The CERTAIN Range includes airspace inside the borders of NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC). Additional airspace over the northern section of CERTAIN will be requested as part of the Certificate of Authorization (COA). NASA LaRC BVLOS operations on the CERTAIN Range can be broken down into five critical components needed to meet the 14 CFR § 91.113 see and avoid requirement: 1) procedural deconfliction with LAFB for UAS operations at or below 400 ft and manned aircraft at or above 900’ AGL; 2) ground equipment for detection of intruder aircraft and to support communications between crewmembers ; 3) sUAS vehicles with advanced onboard automation capable of autonomously maintaining safe separation; 4) BVLOS standardized operating procedures (SOPs); 5) and personnel to execute the flight operations in accordance with the SOPs and respond to airborne contingencies. The introduction of new ground equipment includes the use of the Remote Operations for Autonomous Missions (ROAM) UAS Operations Center, development and use of an Integrated Airspace Display (IAD), use of the L-STAR and GA-9120 radars, and the incorporation of standardized Vertiports. The ROAM Operations Center will be the central point for all BVLOS sUAS operations. All command and control (C2), voice communications and airspace awareness displays will reside inside ROAM. The IAD will provide raw data from ADS-B, FLARM, radar tracks and telemetered GPS vehicle positions for interpretation by an Airspace Monitor. The radars will search the class D airspace around the CERTAIN Range and serve as a backup to procedural deconfliction procedures coordinated with LAFB. In the event of a procedural deconfliction breakdown, radar detections of non-participating aircraft will be available so that the 91.113 see and avoid requirement can still be safely met. Finally, the incorporation of Vertiports will have video and network connectivity that enables large numbers of sUAS launches and recoveries from a single location. This is a continuation of the remote command and control of unpiloted aircraft component focused on evaluating unpiloted aircraft flight crew roles and responsibilities, control interfaces and the associated data links needed to operate a fleet of aircraft within a UAM Ecosystem. This work supports the development of future aviation operational concepts based on an Urban Air Mobility Maturity Level (UML) 4 environment (Patterson, 2020). It is assumed that future airspace will include hundreds of simultaneous aircraft operations within the airspace, therefore scalable operations are essential for enabling this future airspace to become a reality. Follow on work includes envisioned flights that expand operations beyond the CERTAIN range and lead to an effective Maritime Surveillance capability.

Matthew W Coldsnow↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Effects of Communication Modality on Pilot-Controller Coordination during a Simulated m:N Operation

The last decade or so has seen growing interest in new control paradigms and concepts of operation for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) in which multiple aircraft are piloted remotely by a single or relatively small number of people. Referred to as “one-to-many” and “many-to- many” (alternatively, “multi-operator, multi-vehicle”)—and frequently expressed as the corresponding ratios, 1:N and m:N—such novel configurations of aircraft and the people who manage them are seen as critical to the path to future operations involving UAS. Examples of industry domains interested in these control paradigms are small package delivery services utilizing small UAS and passenger-carrying, short-range “Urban Air Mobility” (UAM) operations. Stakeholders in such operations have identified communication and coordination of flight activity with air traffic controllers (ATC) as a barrier to operations. In contrast to present-day flight operations, in which a pilot communicates with one ATC on one radio frequency for one aircraft, multi-vehicle operations potentially entail a significant increase in pilot task load for management of comms. New concepts, such as UAS Service Suppliers (USSs) and Providers of Services to UAM (PSUs), have been proposed to address the known bottleneck for Air Traffic Management (ATM) presented by multi-vehicle operations. While progress has been steadily made over years developing USSs and PSUs, it is generally expected that initial UAM operations will rely on traditional voice-over-radio communication with ATC for purposes of ATM. The current study was a human-in-the-loop simulation that had participants, each possessing a Private Pilot License, act as the ground-based pilot-in- command for multiple vehicles in a hypothetical UAM service in the San Francisco Bay Area. The experiment utilized a 2-by-3, within-subjects design in which the pilot’s Vehicle Load (4 vs. 12) and Comm System (Voice, Datalink, and a Hybrid) were manipulated. The task given to pilots was to use the Comm System to coordinate flight activity for all aircraft with appropriate controllers, having to obtain departure and arrival clearances at “vertiport” facilities and transition clearances for any intermediate airspaces along the route. Pilots were additionally responsible for compliance with vectoring instructions issued by ATC. Subjective workload questionnaires (NASA-TLX) were administered following each experimental trial. Screen recordings of the pilot’s Ground Control Station (GCS) and audio recordings of trials were subsequently coded to obtain performance metrics: response times and error rates. Presented in this paper are results related to pilot responses to vectoring instructions issued by ATC. Workload was found to be significantly higher in the 12-Vehicle condition compared to the 4-Vehicle condition, nearly maxing out the NASA-TLX overall workload scale. There was no significant difference made by the Comm System on workload ratings. Pilots’ response times to communications were fastest in the Voice condition, although overall “service time” for compliance was shorter in Datalink and Hybrid conditions in most cases. Errors by pilots were frequent in both Vehicle Load conditions, most perniciously when using the Voice system. The results of this study suggest tradeoffs in advantages and disadvantages of the three comm systems. Recommendations for communication system design are provided taking the tradeoffs into account.

Garrett G Sadler↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Effects of Communication Modality on Pilot-Controller Coordination during a Simulated m:N Operation

The last decade or so has seen growing interest in new control paradigms and concepts of operation for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) in which multiple aircraft are piloted remotely by a single or relatively small number of people. Referred to as “one-to-many” and “many-to- many” (alternatively, “multi-operator, multi-vehicle”)—and frequently expressed as the corresponding ratios, 1:N and m:N—such novel configurations of aircraft and the people who manage them are seen as critical to the path to future operations involving UAS. Examples of industry domains interested in these control paradigms are small package delivery services utilizing small UAS and passenger-carrying, short-range “Urban Air Mobility” (UAM) operations. Stakeholders in such operations have identified communication and coordination of flight activity with air traffic controllers (ATC) as a barrier to operations. In contrast to present-day flight operations, in which a pilot communicates with one ATC on one radio frequency for one aircraft, multi-vehicle operations potentially entail a significant increase in pilot task load for management of comms. New concepts, such as UAS Service Suppliers (USSs) and Providers of Services to UAM (PSUs), have been proposed to address the known bottleneck for Air Traffic Management (ATM) presented by multi-vehicle operations. While progress has been steadily made over years developing USSs and PSUs, it is generally expected that initial UAM operations will rely on traditional voice-over-radio communication with ATC for purposes of ATM. The current study was a human-in-the-loop simulation that had participants, each possessing a Private Pilot License, act as the ground-based pilot-in- command for multiple vehicles in a hypothetical UAM service in the San Francisco Bay Area. The experiment utilized a 2-by-3, within-subjects design in which the pilot’s Vehicle Load (4 vs. 12) and Comm System (Voice, Datalink, and a Hybrid) were manipulated. The task given to pilots was to use the Comm System to coordinate flight activity for all aircraft with appropriate controllers, having to obtain departure and arrival clearances at “vertiport” facilities and transition clearances for any intermediate airspaces along the route. Pilots were additionally responsible for compliance with vectoring instructions issued by ATC. Subjective workload questionnaires (NASA-TLX) were administered following each experimental trial. Screen recordings of the pilot’s Ground Control Station (GCS) and audio recordings of trials were subsequently coded to obtain performance metrics: response times and error rates. Presented in this paper are results related to pilot responses to vectoring instructions issued by ATC. Workload was found to be significantly higher in the 12-Vehicle condition compared to the 4-Vehicle condition, nearly maxing out the NASA-TLX overall workload scale. There was no significant difference made by the Comm System on workload ratings. Pilots’ response times to communications were fastest in the Voice condition, although overall “service time” for compliance was shorter in Datalink and Hybrid conditions in most cases. Errors by pilots were frequent in both Vehicle Load conditions, most perniciously when using the Voice system. The results of this study suggest tradeoffs in advantages and disadvantages of the three comm systems. Recommendations for communication system design are provided taking the tradeoffs into account.

urban air mobility↗
NASA NTRS2023

An In-time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) Concept of Operations for Vertiport Design and Operations

The National Airspace System is foreseen to undergo revolutionary change with Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and its use of vertiports to transport passengers and cargo. To assure safety with UAM and more broadly with Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), the National Academies recommended an In-time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) that is extensible to the design and operation of vertiports. Vertiport designs will scale in several dimensions including physical size and infrastructure depending upon location and in the Services, Functions, and Capabilities required for assuring safety with increasingly complex vertiport designs and operations. These operations will be enabled by evolving technologies including electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for passenger-and cargo-carrying commercial transportation. Within this construct, safety hazards and risk mitigations involving predictive data analytics and modeling will be used. Use cases and future challenges are examined to guide maturation of the IASMS ConOps for vertiports.

K Ellis↗
NASA NTRS2020

A Quiet Helicopter for Air Taxi Operations

NASA is exploring rotorcraft designs for VTOL air taxi operations, also known as urban air mobility (UAM) or on-demand mobility (ODM) applications. Several concept vehicles have been developed, intended to focus and guide NASA research activities in support of aircraft development for this emerging market. This paper examines a single main-rotor helicopter designed specifically for low-noise air taxi operations. Based on demonstrated technology, the aircraft uses a turboshaft engine with a sound-absorbing installation, and the NOTAR anti-torque system to eliminate tail-rotor noise, consequently the noise and annoyance of the aircraft are dominated by the main rotor. Several design parameters are explored to reduce the noise, including rotor tip speed, blade geometry, and higher-harmonic control. Commensurate with the level of design detail, the noise is calculated for compact loading and thickness sources on the rotating blades. The metric is the reduction of the noise for the helicopter certification conditions (takeoff, flyover, and approach), relative a baseline aircraft with typical (high) tip speed, conventional blade planform, and no higher-harmonic control.

Johnson, Wayne↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Human Factors Research Considerations for Terminal Area Urban Air Mobility Operations

In this presentation, we discuss the human factors research challenges from introducing greater levels of automation in a future air transportation concept called Urban Air Mobility (UAM). UAM is an air transportation concept that aims to provide air transportation services to the daily commuter, as well as emergency response and package delivery. The principal innovation over current day large air transport system is the greater distribution of important safety functions to automated and human agents; these functions include air traffic management, traditionally an air traffic controller responsibility. A central aspect of UAM is the development of an automated air traffic manager, whose primary responsibility is to approve airspace access for vehicle operators. Vehicle operator roles may include onboard and remote pilots, as well as a human manager who will supervise an entire fleet. Alternatively, both fleet manager and vehicle operators can be merged into a single role – a feasible option if UAM aircraft are autonomous. In lieu of tower controllers, vertiport managers, with the assistance of automation, will manage arrival and departure schedules between vertiports, as well as supervise surface operations. Our approach here will be to introduce use cases currently being developed by NASA, and then provide preliminary definitions for each of the roles introduced above and how coordination between them can be configured to support the operations within the use cases described. Subsequently, we review the tools and interfaces being developed to support the various roles. To conclude, we present current human factors work related to defining the roles above and suggest future work to advance the UAM concept.

trial planning↗
NASA NTRS2020

Urban Air Mobility System Testbed Using CAVE Virtual Reality Environment

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) refers to a system of air passenger and small cargo transportation within an urban area. The UAM framework also includes other urban Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) services that will be supported by a mix of onboard, ground, piloted, and autonomous operations. Over the past few years UAM research has gained wide interest from companies and federal agencies as an on-demand innovative transportation option that can help reduce traffic congestion and pollution as well as increase mobility in metropolitan areas. The concepts of UAM/UAS operation in the National Airspace System (NAS) remains an active area of research to ensure safe and efficient operations. With new developments in smart vehicle design and infrastructure for air traffic management, there is a need for methods to integrate and test various components of the UAM framework. In this work, we report on the development of a virtual reality (VR) testbed using the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) technology for human-automation teaming and airspace operation research of UAM. Using a four-wall projection system with motion capture, the CAVE provides an immersive virtual environment with real-time full body tracking capability. We created a virtual environment consisting of San Francisco city and a vertical take-off-and-landing passenger aircraft that can fly between a downtown location and the San Francisco International Airport. The aircraft can be operated autonomously or manually by a single pilot who maneuvers the aircraft using a flight control joystick. The interior of the aircraft includes a virtual cockpit display with vehicle heading, location, and speed information. The system can record simulation events and flight data for post-processing. The system parameters are customizable for different flight scenarios; hence, the CAVE VR testbed provides a flexible method for development and evaluation of UAM framework.

Marayong, Panadda↗
NASA NTRS2023

A Blockchain Case Study for Urban Air Mobility Operational Intent

To realize the potential of Urban Air Mobility (UAM), an assurance of cybersecurity is critical for public acceptance. UAM is a concept that proposes to develop short-range, point-to-point transportation systems in metropolitan areas using vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft to overcome increasing surface congestion. The growth in the development of UAM systems, and the associated data exchange and service interactions will be at risk due to numerous types of cybersecurity attacks. The intent of this work is to leverage a permissioned blockchain to simulate secure data exchange and storage for the UAM operational intent use case. In this case study, two vehicle operators are operating in the same airspace. Their intent is to fly vehicles that land at a shared vertiport, securely.

Urban Air Mobility↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Blockchain Case Study for Urban Air Mobility Operational Intent

To realize the potential of Urban Air Mobility (UAM), an assurance of cybersecurity is critical for public acceptance. UAM is a concept that proposes to develop short-range, point-to-point transportation systems in metropolitan areas using vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft to overcome increasing surface congestion. The growth in the development of UAM systems, and the associated data exchange and service interactions will be at risk due to numerous types of cybersecurity attacks. The intent of this work is to leverage a permissioned blockchain to simulate secure data exchange and storage for the UAM operational intent use case.

UAM↗
NASA NTRS2023

A Blockchain Case Study for Urban Air Mobility Operational Intent

To realize the potential of Urban Air Mobility (UAM), an assurance of cybersecurity is critical for public acceptance. UAM is a concept that proposes to develop short-range, point-to-point transportation systems in metropolitan areas using vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft to overcome increasing surface congestion. The growth in the development of UAM systems, and the associated data exchange and service interactions will be at risk due to numerous types of cybersecurity attacks. The intent of this work is to leverage a permissioned blockchain to simulate secure data exchange and storage for the UAM operational intent use case.

UAM↗
NASA NTRS2023

Distributed Sensing and Reasoning for Advanced Air Mobility Health Management and Mission Assurance

As envisioned, Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) will introduce new vehicles and operations within the national airspace, moving people and cargo safely and efficiently at a much larger scale than today. Driven by transformative technology and revolutionary aircraft, this movement must still manage technical, regulatory, operational, and policy challenges. NASA’s work in support of AAM and UAM includes, but is not limited to tools, technologies, and architectures for distributed sensing of aircraft, data & reasoning services exchange, Human-Autonomy Teaming (HAT), contingency management, and vehicle health management. This paper builds upon these concepts and evaluates the use of distributed sensing and infrastructure assistance towards health management and mission assurance of UAM vehicles in specific operational scenarios. Through analysis of these example missions, aided by the data produced by the conceptual distributed sensing and reasoning infrastructure, we define opportunities for state estimation, diagnosis, and key decision points affecting the health state of the vehicle and the airspace volume. As a result, we define a number of measurable health state parameters providing relevant information to drive decision-making in contingency situations or feed automation tools in support of operators and managers.

Safety↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

From the Knowledge-based Digital Platform (KbDP) Concept for Advanced Air Mobility Research to a Preliminary Prototype

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) encompasses a range of innovative operational and technological changes to aviation (electric aircraft, increasingly automated aircraft, increasingly automated airspace operations, etc.) that are transforming aviation’s role in everyday movement of people and goods. There are multiple associated concepts and use cases for AAM, all interrelated, including small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), Upper-Class E Traffic Management (ETM), Extensible Traffic Management (xTM), Regional Air Mobility (RAM), and Urban Air Mobility (UAM). These AAM operations must integrate with traditional Air Traffic Management (ATM) operations, as well as non-aviation modes of transportation and logistics. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is spearheading an innovative digital engineering approach to integrate, communicate, and facilitate the research of multi-modal transportation systems. The Knowledge-based Digital Platform (KbDP) is a concept being developed that ties the workflows of Project Managers (PM), Principal Investigators (PI), and System Engineers together across organizational boundaries. It does so through the management of an information database defined by mathematical, data science, and system engineering principles. Machine Learning (ML) algorithms play a key role in this concept by extracting meaningful knowledge from the information database, which the human user leverages to greatly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their research. Expected benefits of this concept include improved technology transfers from research to production, improved research portfolio investments, and research outcomes that are more integrated with all aspects of the multi-modal transportation problem. The preliminary KbDP prototype has been realized using UAM as a pathfinder use case and developed by a team of system engineer, software developer, data scientist, and interns.

Systems Engineering↗