Modelling and simulation of Urban Air Mobility: an extendable approach

Abstract

This paper presents an extendable approach to the modelling and simulation of Urban Air Mobility (UAM), and dissemination criteria for system of systems simulation driven studies. UAM involves a multitude of complexities including the airspace, fleet, demand, and vertidrome management. Simulation is a key enabler for understanding these complexities and the interaction of the different stakeholders within the UAM paradigm. This work builds upon past research of the authors and presents a framework for simulation and modelling which includes the modelling of passenger demand, passenger mode choice, vehicle allocation for heterogenous fleets, route planning, deadheading, vertidrome scheduling, and flight scheduling with stop-overs. The approach presented in this work can be used to model both on-demand and scheduled operations, while the primary focus is placed on the former. Moreover, different methods can be implemented for the detailed modelling of the stakeholders, in addition to parametrically varying aspects such as the fleet size, number of vertidromes, and others. The aims of this paper are two, firstly to offer a framework for the modelling of UAM by breaking down its complexity systematically to understand the stakeholders, the processes and interactions. By breaking down the complexity into understandable blocks, the emergent behavior of the system of systems simulation may be more easily observed or understood. Secondly, it is to provide a clear method for dissemination of the modelling and simulation with the goal of establishing a common standard, demonstrated through the dissemination of the authors’ simulation to the reader.