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

Kurzfassung

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 trajectories