Unmanned Urban Air Mobility

The UUAM operations will require a separate, newly created airspace with a new set of rules and standards. Integrating them with the current ATC system will be very complex and is unlikely.

BY ANIL CHOPRA

Unmanned Urban Air Mobility (UUAM) is the next happening thing in civil aviation. UUAM is the future mode of transport offering aerial passenger transport within or between cities. Advances in unmanned aerial systems, battery and electric propulsion technology are the main factors that have facilitated UUAM. It is thus possible to use unmanned aerial vehicles that can take-off and land vertically (VTOL) for intra-urban passenger transportation. Many companies are developing the next generation VTOL vehicles. Passenger acceptance and potential passengers’ value of time, are the two key factors for going ahead. The UUAM vehicle could either be rotary-wing, fixed-wing or hybrid cruise vehicles. There is the need to understand the landscape of relevant questions surrounding the implementation of UUAM. The urban airspace would have to look at safety-related factors, social factors, system factors, and aircraft factors.

Uuam Evolves

The fact that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have been successfully flying since 1970s, and the safety record has been continuously improving, has given confidence for UUAM. Removing pilots dramatically increases payload and reduces labour costs. Meanwhile, the advances in civil aviation have seen the boom in less expensive civil travel and light personal jets since the 1990s. Well managed airlines have pulled ahead of the pack. Now as the world begins to reach inflection point, there are signs of hot competition over UUAM aircraft, too. UUAM evolved from the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), a joint initiative of the FAA, NASA, and the industry to develop an air transportation system that moves passengers and cargo with new electric (i.e. green) air vehicles in various geographies previously underserved by traditional aviation. Nearly 150 companies worldwide are in the race with under-testing UUAM prototypes, to make aircraft not just flyable, but viable. The controllers initially designed for small UAVs were not robust enough for passenger flights. Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) are greatly supporting UUAM.

Public Confidence

The public is still sceptical. A survey by Booz Allen Hamilton for NASA found that only 21 per cent of people would feel comfortable flying alone in an automated aircraft – though that number increased to 40 per cent if they were accompanied

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CHAPTER 4