Identifying and Analyzing Operations Limits for Passenger-Carrying Urban Air Mobility Missions
Apoorv Maheshwari, Sai Mudumba, Brandon E. Sells, Daniel DeLaurentis, William Crossley
Abstract
Understanding the operational limits in the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) market and their interdependence with potential new technologies is important to enhance the evolution of UAM. This paper summarizes and exemplifies means to identify and organize operational limits, followed by translation to analysis of their impact on the Urban Air Mobility system-of-systems. Operational limits are explored via an assessment of various factors using the Resources, Operations, Policies, and Economics (ROPE) table methodology. Demonstration cases explore operational limits from individual and community level perspectives in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Operational limits from individual traveler perspectives discuss the impact of peak ground traffic conditions, the impact of UAM-Port (i.e., port used for UAM vehicle landing and take-off) location, and the impact of ride sharing coupled with waiting time on the operating cost and the travel time of a commuting trip per commuter; whereas, operational limits from a community perspective discuss the impact of ground traffic congestion speed on the UAM-Port location and the impact of UAM-Port topologies and operational conditions on UAM-Port operations.