U-space Services as a Necessity for Scalable Vertidrome Operations?

Abstract

U-space is a set of new services relying on a high level of digitalization and automation of functions and specific procedures, designed to provide safe, efficient and secure access to airspace for large numbers of unmanned aircraft, operating automatically and even beyond visual line of sight. This kind of concepts of operations (ConOps) of airspace integration for drones and air taxis are also called UTM (Unmanned aircraft system Traffic Management) systems, being U-space the UTM ConOps agreed for Europe. U-space services are under development but commercially not available yet. For demonstration purposes, in the project HorizonUAM, a central U-space cloud service is simulated through a local messaging server using the protocol MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport). A prototypical vertidrome management tool was created to demonstrate the scheduling and sequencing of air taxi flights. The vertidrome manager is fully integrated within U-space and receives real-time information on flight plans, including requests for start and landing and emergency notifications. Additional information coming from other U-space services (e.g. weather information) can be accessed on request. The integration was demonstrated in a scaled flight test environment with multicopters (<15 kg) representing passenger carrying air taxis. This presentation will report on the conceptualization, implementation and demonstration of the vertidrome manager. The tool was integrated into a prototypical U-space environment and tested in scaled flight trials with smaller UAS representing air taxis. For this purpose, a model city was erected consisting of an urban canyon and several landing pads. The scaled demonstrations proved to be very effective especially as prototypes of full-sized passenger carrying air taxis are still rarely available at the time this paper was written. Specifically, the interface evidenced to be a first good approach to the software that would be required in a first implementation phase in which a person-in-the-loop is required to approve or cancel air taxi operations in terms of functionality and information displayed. Furthermore, the process of the eventualities, even with the requirement of a person involved, was quick enough for the drone in the scaled experiment to be able to maneuver on time and execute the rerouting with no risk. U-space services will be implemented in the near future in Europe and will be made available for new airspace users such as UAS but also for remotely piloted or autonomous air taxis. Specific U-space services as needed for vertidrome operations were successfully tested in the reported scaled flight demonstrations. In future research, more emphasize should be given on the actual vertidrome layout and the approach procedures. Capacity and efficiency of different designs should be carefully considered in simulation as well as in flight testing.