A Collaborative Approach for an Integrated Modeling of Urban Air Transportation Systems

Abstract

The current push in automation, communication, and electrical energy storage technologies has the potential to lift urban mobility into the sky. As several urban air mobility (UAM) concepts are conceivable, all relevant physical effects as well as mutual interrelations of the UAM system have to be addressed and evaluated at a sufficient level of fidelity before implementation. Therefore, a collaborative system of systems modeling approach for UAM is presented. To quickly identify physical effects and cross-disciplinary influences of UAM, a pool of low-fidelity physical analysis components is developed and integrated into the Remote Component Environment (RCE) workflow engine. This includes, i. a., the disciplines of demand forecast, trajectory, vertiport, and cost modeling as well as air traffic flow and capacity management. The definition and clarification of technical interfaces require intensive cooperation between specialists with different areas of expertise. To reduce this communication effort, the Common Parametric Aircraft Configuration Schema (CPACS) is adapted and used as central data exchange format. The UAM system module is initially applied for a 24-hour simulation of three generic networks in Hamburg City. After understanding the basic system-level behavior, higher level analysis components and feedback loops must be integrated in the UAM system module for evaluation and optimization of explicit operating concepts.

Urban Air Mobility: Systematic Review of Scientific Publications and Regulations for Vertiport Design and Operations

“…A collaborative simulation approach is proposed by [104], in order to analyze a UAM network inside the metropolitan area of Hamburg (Germany). It follows the objective of defining low-fidelity analysis components such as demand, vertiport design, vertiport integration, routing, scheduling and setting them into relation in order to analyze interdependencies.…”

“…Early contributions of [131] on the ratio between gates and pads have found the ratio to strongly depend on the turnaround time at the gates, which in turn depends on passenger boarding and vehicle charging. Ratios that are being put forth range from 2 to 8 gates per pad [104,132] and are therefore a novelty compared to today's heliports operations, which concerns itself almost exclusively with pad operations. Most publications place all elements on a two dimensional plane.…”

Orchestrating Tool Chains for Model-based Systems Engineering with RCE

“…Many users already rely on RCE in their daily work and appreciate its capabilities. [13][14][15][16] In addition to DLR-external projects, there are many research projects at DLR itself in which RCE is used that contain concrete use cases. These use cases are in application domains covering both the domain of aerospace as well as in the domains of traffic and energy.…”

Impact of Air Taxis on Air Traffic in the Vicinity of Airports

“…The lowest flight altitude represents the minimum safety altitude for VFR flights over cities [20]. Separations from 200 ft vertical and 2000 ft lateral between ATs are applied based on the assumption that two ATs flying towards each other, with the assumed velocity, need approximately ten seconds for collision avoidance manoeuvres [21]. Additionally, wake turbulence separations are used between ATs and conventional aircraft.…”