Isabel C. Metz | Searcharxiv

arXiv2023

Validation of Collision Detection and Avoidance Methods for Urban Air Mobility through Simulation

Urban Air Mobility is a new concept of regional aviation that has been growing in popularity as a solution to the issue of ever-increasing ground traffic. Electric vehicles with vertical take-off and landing capabilities are being developed by numerous market companies as a result of the push toward environmentally sustainable aviation. The next stage in the eVTOL development process would be to define the concept of operation of these conceptual aircraft and then to integrate them with the existing airspace once they are airborne. In addition to coordinating with conventional air traffic and other Urban Air Mobility (UAM) vehicles, collision avoidance with uncooperative airspace users has to be addressed. Birds and drones of all sizes could be dangerous for these low-flying aircraft. Innovative collision detection and avoidance techniques need to be employed due to the uncooperative nature of these airspace users and different performance characteristics of urban air mobility vehicles compared to classical fixed-wing aircraft. The aim of this study is to validate one such system by means of fast-time solutions. This system uses a decision tree and safety envelopes to prevent collisions with non-cooperative airspace members. The system is designed to work with different aircraft configurations used for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations. Various scenarios are modelled by varying intruder type, location, flight path among others. Changes in flight time and closest point of approach are assessed to evaluate the system with regard to safety and efficiency.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

Experimental Evaluation of Bird Strikes in Urban Air Mobility

Advanced mobility concepts such as Urban Air Mobility are emerging in full swing. In that concept, a safe and efficient aviation transportation system will use highly automated aircraft that will transport passengers or cargo at low altitudes within and between metropolitan regions. To accomplish these missions, new types of aircraft which are sometimes known as air taxis are being developed. A successful integration of these aircraft into existing airspace is complicated and needs to take into account various aspects. One of these is the risk of wildlife strikes which is predicted to be higher in case of air taxis. The proposed operational cruising altitude of air taxis is lower resulting in higher probability of collision as these are the altitudes where birds typically fly. Additionally, air taxis are smaller in size and have lower certification requirements compared to conventional aircraft. As a result, the severity of damaging bird strikes is higher. To assess the risk and formulate suitable regulations, an extensive analysis is required providing more quantitative insight into the bird strike challenge. Therefore, a theoretical model of bird strike to quantify the impact force by considering different bird and aircraft related parameters was developed previously. This paper aims to validate this theoretical model experimentally. It presents a methodology for implementing an experimental setup, allowing for the theoretical impact force model to be fully validated. A test matrix containing seven test cases, nine test scenarios and 135 iterations is formulated to conduct the bird strike experiment and the influencing parameters are considered for theoretical model verification. The paper closes with the presentation of the experimental results for validating the theoretical model which indicate 92.89 % conformance of experimental results with the theoretical model.

eess.SY↗