Monte-Carlo-Based Analysis of Traffic Flow for Urban Air Mobility Vehicles

The research conducted in this dissertation is focused on developing a simulation tool that can predict the traffic flow patterns of the Urban Air Mobility vehicles to alleviate some of the challenges related to their traffic management. First, an introduction to the concept of Urban Air Mobility is given, the usage of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast systems for Urban Air Mobility vehicles is suggested and dynamic addressing concept is introduced as an answer to a part of air traffic management and address scarcity challenge for Urban air Mobility vehicles. Next, in order to simulate the traffic flow patterns of the Urban Air Mobility vehicles, a Monte-Carlo-based simulation tool is developed, and the simulation results are analyzed for two different cases. These results lead to the proper observation window for the simulations and a solution to determine the approximate number of addresses needed to accommodate the desired number of Urban Air Mobility vehicles, which would be a solution for the address scarcity problem of the Urban Air Mobility vehicles. Furthermore, multiple scenarios of different policies, flexibilities, and their impact on the distribution of the number of active Urban Air Mobility vehicles throughout the day are observed. Results show that decreasing the maximum allowed flight duration in the busy periods of the day is proved to reduce the number of active Urban Air Mobility vehicles. Also, the effect of static and dynamic denials is observed and concluded that the static-denial approach alleviates the traffic faster, but the dynamic denial alternative is more fair, equitable, and adaptable as it offers the clients the option to be waitlisted. Overall, the dynamic-denial approach offers better customer service compared to the static one, and the price adjustment case is the most effective and flexible approach. Moreover, three different scenarios are introduced to observe the cases where the Urban Air Mobility vehicles are able to make both inter-city and intra-city trips. The three scenarios are focused on inter-city cases and consist of cases where the inter-city travelers (1) release their address at the border, (2) keep their addresses while crossing the border, and (3) use a shared address pool. The developed analysis tool using the Monte-Carlo simulation technique predicts the results and the outcomes of the three scenarios are compared using the introduced figures of merit. According to the observations, each scenario has its own advantages and possible limitations. Based on the situation, the air traffic management can examine the options and develop the most suitable policy

Decision making criteria for Optimal Selection of Innovative Daylighting Systems in Buildings, Using Integrated Delphi/Dematel/AHP Approach

Nowadays, dense cities has led towards the decrease of daylight penetration into the interior space. Daylight crisis in buildings brings significant challenges to architecture, in three domains of economic, health - wellbeing and environment. "Light well" as one of the most common means of daylight tolls in building, experiences severe limitations and requires special attention. The question is which strategy is the best for increasing the daylight penetration to the depth of buildings. One of the main challenges in deep plan is to guide daylight into the building core and this can be performed through daylighting strategies, but the choice of the proper innovative daylighting system (IDS) with several parameters is the problem. This paper aims to find elements for optimal choice and selecting context-compatible tools for light well. The result shows that four macro factors were found at the interaction of building and IDS. Identifying the integration components can play an effective role in decision-making or design a new tolls consistent with the physical conditions of light well and building to overcome the daylight crisis. The present study aimed to identify, evaluate, and weigh the factors affecting the selection of appropriate and innovative daylighting systems for buildings. To this end, a three-phase study was planned and carried out. In the first phase, the factors affecting the selection of daylighting systems for the building were screened and finalized by using the Delphi method in three steps. In the second phase, interactions between criteria and sub-criteria were evaluated by the DEMATEL technique and then the network of communications and significant relationship between them were determined. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was employed in the third phase to evaluate the criteria and determine their importance in the selection of daylighting systems. Finally, the relevant sub-criteria were extracted and prioritized. The results indicated that structural, economic, and technical criteria were more effective than functional criteria in the selection of daylighting systems for buildings

Method to Characterize Potential UAS Encounters Using Open Source Data

As unmanned aerial systems (UASs) increasingly integrate into the US national airspace system, there is an increasing need to characterize how commercial and recreational UASs may encounter each other. To inform the development and evaluation of safety critical technologies, we demonstrate a methodology to analytically calculate all potential relative geometries between different UAS operations performing inspection missions. This method is based on a previously demonstrated technique that leverages open source geospatial information to generate representative unmanned aircraft trajectories. Using open source data and parallel processing techniques, we performed trillions of calculations to estimate the relative horizontal distance between geospatial points across sixteen locations.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables, 19 reference

Short study of unmanned cargo multicopters with simulation

In this article, we study new trend of how cargo air vehicles (CAV) are becoming general usage in military to carry different materials. They have some benefits when compared against traditional helicopters and airplanes as example they are cheap and versatile. They can be used to transport medical, food and ammunition supplies to military personnel without loss of life and with a very little maintenance capacity. We will present general structure of multicopters and we will show different solutions to unmanned transport that have been developed in different countries for military usage. Lastly we will present a simulation model for CAV, that can be used to estimate how long time it will take to deliver any amount of cargo with any number of CAVs. Usage is very simple all is needed is user to set CAV parameters to our system

Conflict assessment and resolution of climate-optimal aircraft trajectories at network scale

Aviation contributes to anthropogenic climate change through carbon dioxide (CO2) and non-CO2 emissions. Due to dependency on atmospheric conditions, the non-CO2 climate impacts can be mitigated using aircraft trajectory optimization. However, adopting independently optimized trajectories may not be operationally feasible for the air traffic management system due to the associated impacts on the safety, demand, and complexity of air traffic. This study aims to explore the effects of employing climate-optimized trajectories on air traffic complexity in terms of the number of conflicts and propose a strategic resolution based on speed change to resolve the conflicts that arise. A scenario with 1005 flights is considered as the case study. The results indicate that the adoption of climate-optimal trajectories increases operational cost and the number of conflicts. Employing the proposed resolution algorithm, it is shown that the conflicts can be resolved by accepting slight increases in climate impact and cost

Whitepaper - Augmented Helicopter Rescue Operation with Air2X and Virtual Infrastructure

This paper describes current operational procedures, circumstances and challenges of rescue helicopter landings on highways and is dedicated to present the technological solution of a communication interface between aerial and ground vehicles for increasing safety and efficiency. While a direct communication link between both sides would be the preferred option, this paper provides a solution that allows a near-term implementation and deployment. Consequently, a translating unit is required to merge the different expected communication standards of both domains. For the temporary establishment of a safe exclusive landing zone without ground support, the concept requires a low number of highly automated ground vehicles in a mixed traffic, guaranteeing a foreseeable behavior of certain traffic participants. Besides the technical implementation, safety, security and regulatory aspects of the concept are considered

StratoTrans : Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) 4G communication framework applied on the monitoring of road traffic and linear infrastructure

This study provides an operational solution to directly connect drones to internet by means of 4G telecommunications and exploit drone acquired data, including telemetry and imagery but focusing on video transmission. The novelty of this work is the application of 4G connection to link the drone directly to a data server where video (in this case to monitor road traffic) and imagery (in the case of linear infrastructures) are processed. However, this framework is appliable to any other monitoring purpose where the goal is to send real-time video or imagery to the headquarters where the drone data is processed, analyzed, and exploited. We describe a general framework and analyze some key points, such as the hardware to use, the data stream, and the network coverage, but also the complete resulting implementation of the applied unmanned aerial system (UAS) communication system through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) featuring a long-range telemetry high-capacity video link (up to 15 Mbps, 720 p video at 30 fps with 250 ms of latency). The application results in the real-time exploitation of the video, obtaining key information for traffic managers such as vehicle tracking, vehicle classification, speed estimation, and roundabout in-out matrices. The imagery downloads and storage is also performed thorough internet, although the Structure from Motion postprocessing is not real-time due to photogrammetric workflows. In conclusion, we describe a real-case application of drone connection to internet thorough 4G network, but it can be adapted to other applications. Although 5G will -in time- surpass 4G capacities, the described framework can enhance drone performance and facilitate paths for upgrading the connection of on-board devices to the 5G network