A Collaborative Systems of Systems Simulation of Urban Air Mobility: Architecture Process and Demonstration of Capabilities

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) presents a complex challenge in aviation due to the high degree of innovation required across multiple domains to realize it. From the use of advanced aircraft powered by new technologies, the management of the urban air space to enable high density operations, to the operation of specialized vertidromes serving as a start and end point of the vehicles, the UAM paradigm necessitates a significant departure from aviation as we know it today. In order to understand and assess the many facets of this new paradigm, a Collaborative Agent-Based Simulation is developed to holistically evaluate the system through the modelling of the stakeholders. In this regard, models of vertidrome air-side operations, urban air space management, passenger demand estimation and mode choice, vehicle operator cost and revenues, vehicle maintenance, vehicle allocation, fleet management based on vehicle design performance and mission planning are brought together into a single Collaborative System of Systems Agent-Based Simulation of Urban Air Mobility. Through collaboration, higher fidelity models of each domain can be brought together into a single environment which can then be exploited by all partners, achieving comprehensiveness and fidelity levels not achievable by a single partner. Furthermore, the integration enables the capture of cross-domain effects with ease and allows the domain-specific studies to be evaluated at a holistic level. Agent-Based Simulations were chosen for this collaborative effort as it presents a suitable platform for the modelling of the stakeholders and interactions in accordance with the envisioned concept of operations. This work presents the capabilities of the developed Collaborative System of Systems Agent-based Simulation, the development process and finally a visual demonstration. The objectives of this presentation are: • Detail the development process of the Collaborative System of Systems Agent-Based Simulation • Demonstrate a holistic simulation of UAM built through collaboration of multiple tools/modules such as vertiport and trajectorie

Applying a Comparative Performance Assessment Framework to Different Airspace Management Concepts for Urban Air Mobility

With the emerging industry of Urban Air Mobility (UAM), a multitude of ideas and concepts are being explored and elaborated to deliver an integrated and harmonized UAM ecosystem. These ideas and concepts are involved in all aspects of the UAM ecosystem, including vehicle technology, airspace system design, infrastructure, and governing regulations. Along with the significant progress on the different UAM research topics, comparative assess-ment frameworks are also being proposed to objectively compare them. Before UAM deployment, stakeholders need to compare the different approaches and determine which one is the better fit to specific needs. This paper focuses on assessing concepts related to UAM airspace management. It aims to apply a comparative assessment framework to three concepts, namely Slot Based Approach (SBA), Trajectory Based Approach (TBA), both devel-oped by DLR within the HorizonUAM project, and Corridor Based Approach (CBA) developed by NASA under the Air Traffic Management – eXploration (ATM-X) project. This paper describes an initial comparative study while delivering the first key findings. The applied methodology is based on simulation runs conducted in different urban areas, Hamburg and Dallas/Fort Worth, using two simulation platforms namely a DLR Simulation using the Remote Component Environment (RCE) and the NASA-developed simulation platform called TestBed. The col-lected results shed light on the advantages and disadvantages of each airspace management concept and help to identify key distinctions between the concepts. Solutions and concepts are often tailored to a specific city, making it difficult to replicate and scale. Indeed, there is no one-size-fits-all concept. This study demonstrates the general applicability of the proposed performance assessment methodology and can serve as the basis for further comparison studies of future airspace management concepts for UAM