Search Results for « Urban Air Mobility »

In this chapter, we discuss urban mobility from a complexity science perspective. First, we give an overview of the datasets that enable this approach, such as mobile phone records, location-based social network traces, or GPS trajectories from sensors installed on vehicles. We then review the empirical and theoretical understanding of the properties of human movements, including the distribution of travel distances and times, the entropy of trajectories, and the interplay between exploration and exploitation of locations. Next, we explain generative and predictive models of individual mobility, and their limitations due to intrinsic limits of predictability. Finally, we discuss urban transport from a systemic perspective, including system-wide challenges like ridesharing, multimodality, and sustainable transport.

The trend for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is growing with prospective air taxis, parcel deliverers, and medical and industrial services. Safe and efficient UAM operation relies on timely communication and reliable data exchange. In this paper, we explore Cooperative Perception (CP) for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), considering the unique communication needs involving high dynamics and a large number of UAS. We propose a hybrid approach combining local broadcast with a central CP service, inspired by centrally managed U-space and broadcast mechanisms from automotive and aviation domains. In a simulation study, we show that our approach significantly enhances the environmental awareness for UAS compared to fully distributed approaches, with an increased communication channel load, which we also evaluate. These findings prompt a discussion on communication strategies for CP in UAM and the potential of a centralized CP service in future research.

Since the early 20thcentury, inventors have conceptualized “plane cars” and other urban aerial transportation. Emerging innovations in electrification, automation, and other technologies are enabling new opportunities for on-demand air mobility, business models, and aircraft design. Urban air mobility (UAM) envisions a safe, sustainable, affordable, and accessible air transportation system for passenger mobility, goods delivery, and emergency services within or traversing metropolitan areas. This research employed a multi-method approach comprised of 106 interviews with thought leaders and two stakeholder workshops to construct the history, ecosystem, state of the industry, and potential evolution of UAM. The history, current developments, and anticipated milestones of UAM can be classified into six phases: 1) “flying car” concepts from the early 1910s to 1950s, 2) early UAM operations using scheduled helicopter services from the 1950s to 1980s, 3) re-emergence of on-demand services starting in the 2010s, 4) corridor services using vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) envisioned for the 2020s, 5) hub and spoke services, and 6) point-to-point services. In the future, UAM could face several barriers to growth and mainstreaming, such as the existing regulatory environment; community acceptance; and concerns about safety, noise, social equity, and environmental impacts. UAM also could be limited by infrastructure and airspace management needs, as well as business model constraints. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research on sustainability, social and economic impacts, airspace integration, and other topics.

This paper presents an adaptive model predictive control (MPC) framework for nonlinear urban air mobility (UAM) vehicles operating across the full flight envelope. The proposed approach leverages a linear parameter-varying (LPV) representation to update the predictive model online, enabling accurate capture of strongly nonlinear and time-varying dynamics associated with distributed electric propulsion (DEP) eVTOL aircraft. To systematically address the high-dimensional and coupled nature of MPC tuning, a multi-objective evolutionary optimization strategy based on NSGA-II is employed, incorporating proper normalization of states and control inputs to ensure balanced weighting and meaningful exploration of the design space. The resulting controller explicitly accounts for actuator constraints and enables reconfigurable control allocation for fault-tolerant operation. The framework is evaluated in nonlinear simulations using NASA's Generic Urban Air Mobility (GUAM) model and benchmarked against a robust servomechanism linear quadratic regulator (RSLQR). Results demonstrate that the proposed adaptive MPC achieves improved trajectory tracking and enhanced robustness under both nominal conditions and actuator degradation scenarios, including partial motor failure, while maintaining constraint satisfaction throughout all flight regimes.

The article brings together the academic and industry literature on the design and management of urban airspace. We analyze the proposed airspace concepts, identify their strengths and weaknesses, point to gaps in research, and provide recommendations for a more holistic approach to designing urban airspace. We first identify the structural factors that define the size, capacity, and geometry of urban airspace. These factors are grouped into four categories: safety-related factors, social factors, system factors, and aircraft factors. Second, we review different urban airspace concepts proposed around the world. Third, we assess the airspace concepts based on the identified factors. Most of the reviewed airspace concepts are idealized as abstract networks, with an emphasis on maximizing safety and capacity, and with little regard for factors such as technological complexity, noise, or privacy. Additionally, we find that the airspace structure directly influences the level of safety, efficiency, and capacity of airspace. On the one hand, air vehicles in less structured airspace have more degrees of freedom. They can freely choose their position, altitude, heading, and speed, which increases airspace capacity and reduces flying costs. However, these concepts require high technological capabilities, such as dynamic geofences and advanced sense-and-avoid capabilities, to maintain the required safety levels. On the other hand, airspace concepts with fewer degrees of freedom can accommodate less capable aircraft but require strict operation rules and reduced capacity to ensure safety. Finally, the proposed urban air mobility concepts require extensive ground infrastructures, such as take-off and landing pads and communication, navigation, and surveillance infrastructure. There is a need for a new branch of research that analyzes urban air mobility from the perspective of urban planning, including issues around zoning, air rights, public transportation, real estate development, public acceptance, and access inequalities.

The shift toward high-quality urbanization has brought increased attention to the issue of "urban villages", which has become a prominent social problem in China. However, there is a lack of available geospatial data on urban villages, making it crucial to prioritize urban village mapping. In order to assess the current progress in urban village mapping and identify challenges and future directions, we have conducted a comprehensive review, which to the best of our knowledge is the first of its kind in this field. Our review begins by providing a clear context for urban villages and elaborating the method for literature review, then summarizes the study areas, data sources, and approaches used for urban village mapping in China. We also address the challenges and future directions for further research. Through thorough investigation, we find that current studies only cover very limited study areas and periods and lack sufficient investigation into the scalability, transferability, and interpretability of identification approaches due to the challenges in concept fuzziness and variances, spatial heterogeneity and variances of urban villages, and data availability. Future research can complement and further the current research in the following potential directions in order to achieve large-area mapping across the whole nation...

The current push for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is predicated on the feasibility of novel aircraft types, which will be enabled by the near-term availability of mature technology for high performance subsystems. A number of candidate concept aircraft are presently being designed to meet a set of UAM requirements, in order to quantify the tradeoffs and performance targets necessary for practical implementation of the UAM vision. In examining these vehicles, performance targets and recurring technology themes emerge, which may guide investments in research and development within NASA, other government agencies, academia, and industry.

In a test experiment at the Final Focus Test Beam of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the fluorescence yield of 28.5 GeV electrons in air and nitrogen was measured. The measured photon yields between 300 and 400 nm at 1 atm and 29 deg C are Y(760 Torr, air) = 4.42 +/- 0.73 and Y(760 Torr, nitrogen) = 29.2 +/- 4.8 photons per electron per meter. Assuming that the fluorescence yield is proportional to the energy deposition of a charged particle traveling through air, good agreement with measurements at lower particle energies is observed.

Aviation industry has increased its potential in the last 100 years. From the first steps whereas aviation 1.0 can be defined as the period between the first powered flight (1903) and the advent of the first commercial airliner that was operated on a scheduled international route, the Airco DH.16 (1919) between London and Paris, humanity has faced with the (r)evolution which goes by the many names of flying cars, air taxis, personal air vehicles (PAVs), electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOLs) vehicles, and finally, Urban Air Mobility. Therefore, the concept of safety and its evolution has been changed for many times. Those changes are influenced by different approaches which roughly align with eras of activities in the aviation science and practice. Main approaches, by the time of occurrence, are: technical era (from early 1900s until late 1960s), human factors era (from early 1970s), organizational era (from mid 1990s) and total system era (from the beginning of the 21st century). Compounding evolution of technology and development in aviation industry and safety treats and aspects, this paper provides overall analysis of creating dominant safety management principles in aviation industry. Moreover, paper considers aircraft accidents caused by flight crew errors since it could be the main problem in urban air mobility safety issues. The final part is dedicated to the States role in performing aviation safety and challenges they are faced with. The purpose of the paper is to provide comprehensive platform for safety analysis within the new concept of urban air mobility.