Fundamental Elements of an Urban UTM

McCarthy, Tim; Pforte, Lars; Burke, Rebekah

doi:10.3390/aerospace7070085

Cited by 23 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…We present a perspective model for urban airspace segmentation and multilayer airspace, as shown in Figure3. In each layer, airways (or safety tubes) and nodes are designed such that the aircraft can operate in the specified layers for mobility [8]. The airways are aircraft corridors linked with nodes at each intersection within a layer horizontally or between layers vertically or even diagonally.…”

Section: ) Multilayer Airspace Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The different layers allow various aircraft to fly in the designated layers at varying speed levels. The aircraft speed increases with altitude as there will be few or no static obstacles at higher altitudes; hence, airway highways are feasible [8]. Thus, UAVs and PAVs can fly at different attitudes and destinations at various speeds in their designated safety tubes minimizing collisions between aircraft.…”

Section: ) Multilayer Airspace Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

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6G Enabled Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Traffic Management: A Perspective

2021

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Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and UAV traffic management (UTM) have drawn attention for applications such as parcel delivery, aerial mapping, agriculture, and surveillance based on line-ofsight (LoS) links. UTM is essential to operate multiple fully autonomous UAVs safely beyond the visual line of sight (BVLoS) in the future dense UAV traffic environment. Various research and development teams globally take UTM initiatives and work on platform testing with different industrial partners. In the future, urban airspace will be congested with various types of autonomous aerial vehicles, thereby resulting in complex air-traffic management caused by communication issues. The UTM requires an efficient communication backbone to handle all airborne communication services. Existing cellular networks are suitable only for terrestrial communication and have limitations in supporting aerial communications. These issues motivate the investigation of an appropriate communication technology for advanced UTM systems. Thus, in this study, we present a future perspective of 6G-enabled UTM ecosystems in a very dense and urban air-traffic scenario focusing on non-terrestrial features, including aerial and satellite communication. We also introduce several urban airspace segmentations and discuss a strategic management framework for dynamic airspace traffic management and conflict-free UAV operations. The UTM enhances the adaptive use of the airspace by shaping the airspace with the overall aim of maximizing the capability and efficiency of the network. We also discuss the 6G multi-layer parameters, i.e., space, air, and terrestrial, for safe and efficient urban air transportation in three-dimensional space. Moreover, we discuss the issues and challenges faced by future UTM systems and provide tentative solutions. We subsequently extend the vision of the UTM system and design an advanced and fully autonomous 6G-based UTM system.INDEX TERMS Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Personalized Aerial Vehicle, UTM system, 6G, traffic management I. INTRODUCTION

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Section: ) Multilayer Airspace Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: ) Multilayer Airspace Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

6G Enabled Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Traffic Management: A Perspective

2021

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“…Many articles were found that reported investigations of the technical mechanisms, procedures, and regulations by which shared airspace might be realised, particularly with respect to the development of UTM, which is by far the predominant concept in the domain. McCarthy et al [19] investigated contemporary shared airspace research including initiatives in both the USA and Europe, and identified proposed approaches to expedite UTM solutions for urban areas such as drone certification schemes, collaborative and democratic airspace design, development of scalable traffic management solutions, and the replacement of humans with machines in operating and coordinating drone traffic. Capitán et al [12] reported the development of a software architecture for UTM that can provide real-time monitoring of airspace to enable tactical de-confliction and management of emergencies.…”

Section: Drone Industry Attitudes To Shared Airspacementioning

confidence: 99%

Pathways to Unsegregated Sharing of Airspace: Views of the Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Industry

Grote

Pilko

Scanlan

et al. 2021

Drones

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The uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV or drone) industry is expanding, offering services such as video/photography, inspection, monitoring, surveying, and logistics. This is leading to competing demands for airspace with existing crewed aircraft activities, especially in uncontrolled airspace. As a result, there is an increasingly urgent need for a shared airspace solution that enables drones to be integrated with the wider aviation community in unsegregated operations. The purpose of this research was to engage with the drone industry to understand their issues regarding shared airspace as an important first step in the co-development of operating procedures that can provide equitable airspace access for all. An online, interactive workshop format was employed, with participants (n ~ 80) drawn from the UK drone industry and other attendant organisations. Verbal and written data were recorded, and then analysed using thematic analysis. The findings summarise the issues on a range of topics, grouped into three over-arching themes: (1) operational environment; (2) technical and regulatory environment; and (3) equity and wider society. Results suggested that important issues included the necessity for a dependable detect-and-avoid (DAA) system for in-flight de-confliction, based on onboard electronic conspicuity (EC) devices, and the need for support for shared airspace from the wider aviation community. This study contributes to the stakeholder engagement that will be essential if the co-development of a shared airspace solution is to be widely acceptable to all.

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“…Some have suggested single altitude lane-based approaches that primarily investigated trajectory scheduling algorithms in a way to tackle strategic conflict management [14,15]. While others have focused on conceptual design studies into the use of airway routes over buildings, railways and roads for the city of Singapore [16,17], a majority of the work has been centred on policy-based studies for Europe's advanced air mobility traffic management program, U-Space [18][19][20][21]. However, the common thread in these studies is that they are mainly limited to very low traffic densities of drones or even single drone flight operations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation of Merge Assist Policies to Improve Safety of Drone Traffic in a Constrained Urban Airspace

Doole

Ellerbroek

2022

Aerospace

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Package delivery via autonomous drones is often presumed to hold commercial and societal value when applied to urban environments. However, to realise the benefits, the challenge of safely managing high traffic densities of drones in heavily constrained urban spaces needs to be addressed. This paper applies the principles of traffic segmentation and alignment to a constrained airspace in efforts to mitigate the probability of conflict. The study proposes an en-route airspace concept in which drone flights are directly guided along a one-way street network. This one-way airspace concept uses heading-altitude rules to vertically segment cruising traffic as well as transitioning flights with respect to their travel direction. However, transition flights trigger a substantial number of merging conflicts, thus negating a large part of the benefits gained from airspace structuring. In this paper, we aim to reduce the occurrence of merging conflicts and intrusions by using a delay-based and speed-based merge-assist strategy, both well-established methods from road traffic research. We apply these merge assistance strategies to the one-way airspace design and perform simulations for three traffic densities for the experiment area of Manhattan, New York. The results indicate, at most, a 9–16% decrease in total number of intrusions with the use of merge assistance. By investigating mesoscopic features of the urban street network, the data suggest that the relatively low efficacy of the merge strategies is mainly caused by insufficient space for safe manoeuvrability and the inability for the strategies to fully respond and thus resolve conflicts on short-distance streets.

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Fundamental Elements of an Urban UTM

Cited by 23 publications

References 26 publications

6G Enabled Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Traffic Management: A Perspective

6G Enabled Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Traffic Management: A Perspective

Pathways to Unsegregated Sharing of Airspace: Views of the Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Industry

Investigation of Merge Assist Policies to Improve Safety of Drone Traffic in a Constrained Urban Airspace

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