Integrating vertidrome management tasks into U-space

Abstract

U-space as defined by the European Commission 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.