Urban air mobility

Urban Air Mobility (UAM)[1][2] is the use of small highly automated aircraft to carry passengers or cargo at lower altitudes in urban and suburban areas which have been developed in response to traffic congestion.[2] It usually refers to existing and emerging technologies such as traditional helicopters, vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft (VTOL), electrically propelled, vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft (eVTOL), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These aircraft are characterized by the use of multiple electric-powered rotors or fans for lift and propulsion, along with fly-by-wire systems to control them.[3] Inventors have explored urban air mobility concepts since the early days of powered flight. However, advances in materials, computerized flight controls, batteries and electric motors improved innovation and designs beginning in the late 2010s. Most UAM proponents envision that the aircraft will be owned and operated by professional operators, as with taxis, rather than by private individuals.[4][5]

Urban air mobility is a subset of a broader Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) concept that includes other use cases than intracity passenger transport;[1] NASA describes Advanced Air Mobility as including small drones, electric aircraft, and automated air traffic management among other technologies to perform a wide variety of missions including cargo and logistics.[6]

History

Air mobility is progressing along both manned and UAV directions. In Hamburg, the WiNDroVe project – (use of drones in a metropolitan area) was implemented from May 2017 through January 2018.[7] In Ingolstadt, Germany the Urban Air Mobility project began in June 2018, involving Audi, Airbus, the Carisma Research Center, the Fraunhofer Application Center for Mobility, the THI University of Applied Sciences (THI in the artificial intelligence research network) and other partners. Envisioned was use of UAM in emergency services, transport of blood and organs, traffic monitoring, public safety and passenger transport.

The German, Dutch and Belgian cities Maastricht, Aachen, Hasselt, Heerlen and Liège joined the UAM Initiative of the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC).[8] Toulouse, France, is participating in the European Urban Air Mobility Initiative. The project is coordinated by Airbus, the European institutional partner Eurocontrol and EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency).

Implementation

The concept was realized in São Paulo, Brazil, with over 15,000 passengers flown by Voom. There, urban air mobility was provided by helicopters. Helicopter air taxis are already available in Mexico City, Mexico.[9] Fast air connections are still associated with high costs, and cause considerable noise and high energy consumption. [10]

The Voom UAM demonstration program operated for four years, and was shut down in March 2020.[11]

Aircraft characteristics

Personal air vehicles (PAVs) are under development for urban air mobility. These include projects such as the CityAirbus demonstrator, the Lilium Jet or the Volocopter, the EHang 216 and the experimental Boeing Passenger Air Vehicle.[12][13]

In the concept phase, urban air mobility aircraft, having VTOL capabilities, are deployed to take off and land vertically in a relatively small area to avoid the need of a runway.[14] The majority of designs are electric and use multiple rotors to minimize noise (due to rotational speed) while providing high system redundancy. Many of them have completed their first flight.

The most common configurations of urban air mobility aircraft are multicopters (such as the Volocopter) or so-called tiltwing convertiplane aircraft (e.g. A³ Vahana). The first type uses only rotors with vertical axis, while the second additionally have propulsion and lift systems for horizontal flight (e.g. pressure propeller and wing).[15]

Public acceptance

Public acceptance of UAM relies on a variety of factors, including but not limited to safety, energy consumption, noise, security, and social equity. Safety risks overlap with most current aircraft risks, including the potential for flights outside of approved airspace, proximity to people and/or buildings, critical system failures or loss of control, and hull loss. In the case of autonomous or remote-piloted aircraft, cybersecurity becomes a risk as well. The type of and volume of the noise caused by aircraft and rotorcraft are two leading factors regarding the public perception of eVTOL craft in UAM applications.[16] Specific security concerns include the physical security of passengers in the absence of crew members and the cybersecurity of both the craft and the systems governing it. In regard to social equity, the high initial costs of UAM services could prove to be detrimental to public opinion, especially as the affordability of services and technologies is not guaranteed. In the NASA UAM Market Study, respondents with higher incomes were more likely to take UAM trips.[17] An EASA survey showed that 83% of respondents had a positive attitude towards UAM, while 71% were ready to try UAM services.[18] Projects underway include Lilium announcing to create the first U.S. vertihub in Orlando for its on-demand electric jet service[19] and EHang created an UAM pilot program in Spain in the city of Seville.[20]

Training and Education

In December 2016, the Vertical Lift Research Centers of Excellence (VLRCOE) announced its new academic teams for its program.[21] The joint effort of the United States Army, United States Navy, and NASA aims to foster direct collaboration between the government and academic institutions. Universities have been associated into various teams: Georgia Institute of Technology, Iowa State University, Purdue University, University of Michigan, and Washington University; University of Liverpool, Pennsylvania State University, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, University of California, Davis, and University of Tennessee, University of Maryland, United States Naval Academy, University of Texas at Arlington, University of Texas at Austin, and Texas A&M University; Technical University of Munich, Roma Tre University, and Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.[22]

Volocopter and CAE partnered to create the first eVTOL pilot training and development program in July 2021.[23][24]

See also
  • Urban-Air Port, a UK Government-sponsored helipad+ startup R&D firm, with a prototype at Coventry, equipped for eVTOLs, PAVs and drones, in conjunction with Hyundai.

References
  1. "Urban Air Mobility and Advanced Air Mobility". Federal Aviation Administration. United States Department of Transportation. Retrieved 20 July 2021.
  2. "Urban Air Mobility (UAM)". eu-smartcities.eu. Retrieved Aug 20, 2019.
  3. "Positioning Helicopters in the Urban Air Mobility Ecosystem". asd-europe.org. Retrieved 2021-12-16.
  4. Thurber, Matt. "Eco Helicopters Launching Urban Air Mobility Operations". Aviation International News. Retrieved 2021-12-16.
  5. Vascik, Parker D. (Parker Denys Neff) (2020). Systems analysis of urban air mobility operational scaling (Thesis thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. hdl:1721.1/128057.
  6. Hill, Brian (2 December 2020). "UAM Vision Concept of Operations (ConOps) UAM Maturity Level (UML) 4". NASA Technical Reports Server. NASA. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
  7. "Commercial use of drones: WiNDroVe project launched". zal.aero. Jul 11, 2017. Retrieved Aug 20, 2019.
  8. "Urban Air Mobility Initiative". icas.org. Sep 24, 2018. Retrieved Aug 20, 2019.
  9. "Voom". airbus.com. Retrieved Aug 20, 2019.
  10. Andreas Thellmann (Mar 20, 2018). "The Future of Urban Air Mobility - TEDxWHU". youtube.com. Retrieved Aug 20, 2019.
  11. "Closing This Chapter: Our Learnings On Transforming How People Move". airbus.com. Mar 30, 2020. Retrieved Sep 24, 2021.
  12. "Urban Air Mobility – the sky is yours". icas.org. Nov 27, 2018. Retrieved Aug 20, 2019.
  13. "The Complete Market Overview of the eVTOL Industry". transportup.com. Retrieved Aug 20, 2019.
  14. Michael Shamiyeh, Raoul Rothfeld, Mirko Hornung (Sep 14, 2018). "A Performance Benchmark of Recent Personal Air Vehicle Concepts for Urban Air Mobility" (PDF). icas.org. Retrieved Aug 20, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. Jeff Holden, Nikhil Goel (Oct 27, 2016). "Fast-Forwarding to a Future of On-Demand Urban Air Transportation" (PDF). transportup.com. Retrieved Aug 20, 2019.
  16. Yedavalli, Pavan; Mooberry, Jessie. "An Assessment of Public Perception of Urban Air Mobility (UAM)" (PDF). Airbus. S2CID 208253593.
  17. Garrow, Laurie A.; German, Brian J.; Leonard, Caroline E. (2021-11-01). "Urban air mobility: A comprehensive review and comparative analysis with autonomous and electric ground transportation for informing future research". Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies. 132: 103377. doi:10.1016/j.trc.2021.103377. S2CID 244185347.
  18. "EASA publishes results of first EU study on citizens' acceptance of Urban Air Mobility". EASA. Retrieved 2022-03-07.
  19. Spear, Kevin. "Electric jet aims for Lake Nona as the nation's 1st 'vertiport' for flying taxi service". orlandosentinel.com. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
  20. "Seville to run the first urban air mobility pilot program in Spain | Eltis". www.eltis.org. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
  21. Margetta, Robert (2021-08-10). "NASA Renews Support of Vertical Lift Research Centers of Excellence". NASA. Retrieved 2022-01-26.
  22. Murran, Miguel A.; Najjaran, Homayoun (1 October 2012). "Direct current pulse train actuation to enhance droplet control in digital microfluidics". Applied Physics Letters. 101 (14): 144102. Bibcode:2012ApPhL.101n4102M. doi:10.1063/1.4756914.
  23. "Volocopter and Canada's CAE launch first eVTOL pilot training program". DroneDJ. 2021-07-15. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
  24. Swartz, Kenneth I. (8 July 2021). "CAE and Volocopter Partner to Create Global eVTOL Pilot Training Program". The Electric VTOL News.
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