Evaluating the Interoperability of Urban Air Mobility Systems and Airports

Abstract

This paper investigates how existing arrival and departure procedures can be directly used or adapted to enable high-volume instrument and visual urban air mobility (UAM) flight operations at major airports in the United States. Viable procedures are restricted to those that enable simultaneous and non-interfering UAM flights with conventional aircraft operations. Air traffic controller workload is proposed as the critical integration barrier to scale UAM operations in visual conditions whereas separation minima, especially for approach procedures, is proposed as the critical barrier in instrument conditions. A systems approach is taken to evaluate potential integration strategies for UAM in which the location of UAM runways or vertipads and flight procedures are presented in a topological framework. The benefits, challenges, and notional application of five integration schemes are discussed. Four promising procedures for UAM are introduced through case studies at three airports. Findings indicate that multiple procedures exist to support high-volume UAM integration at major airports under current regulations with additional controller staffing, especially if UAM aircraft exhibit helicopter-like performance.

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

“…In this regard, ref. [182] "considers ATC as a critical barrier for the scaling of UAM operations (as opposed to terminal capacity or surface operations) [. .…”

“…In comparison, for general aviation airports, ref. [182] assumes that a single controller may be capable of managing 100 VFR helicopter operations per hour.…”

“…What attributes are mainly contributing to the integration and scalability of UAM operations was investigated for the U.S. by [182]. The analysis addressed how existing arrival (SCIA, MAPt, PinS) and departure procedures can be used or adjusted to accommodate UAM traffic under either VFR or IFR.…”

“…Next to separation minima and controller workload, ref. [182] also takes into account CNS capabilities (automatic dependent surveillancebroadcast (ADS-B), radio frequencies, traffic alert and collision avoidance system (TCAS) and performance based navigation) that may affect the density limit of concurrent operating UAM vehicles at airports. Five integration approaches are defined in which the UAM traffic is either mixed with conventional flights on a shared runway, closely or widely spaced from each other, operating independently or intersecting with conventional flights.…”

“…From an ATC point of view, vertiports accommodating VFR or IFR UAM flight routes diverging by at least 15 • from the conventional runway are not affected by wake vortices and therefore can be operated independently. Based on [182]'s insights, ref. [184] investigated different UAM implementation approaches at Hamburg Airport (Germany) and rated the achieved air taxi throughput while respecting the acceptable workload of an ATCO.…”