UAM, UTM, and NextGen

UAM, UTM, and NextGen

NASA's vision of Unmanned Traffic Management (Nasa, 2019a).

This week’s ASCI 638 module focused on three areas where work is being done to support the future of aviation: Urban Air Mobility (UAM), Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM), and NextGen. First, some definitions.

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is a “term for on-demand and automated passenger or cargo-carrying air transportation services, typically flown without a pilot” (Honeywell, 2019). Examples of this include Uber Elevate or Amazon Prime Air.

UAS Traffic Management (UTM) consists of building infrastructure that will allow the safe and efficient operation of UAS in low-altitude operations. The future UTM system could provide automated services to UAS such as “airspace design, corridors, dynamic geofencing, severe weather and wind avoidance, congestion management, terrain avoidance, route planning and re-routing, separation management, sequencing and spacing, and contingency management” (NASA, 2019b).

NextGen is a portfolio of new technologies that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is implementing in phases to accommodate a higher density of aircraft in the future. This increased density will be caused by several factors, including population growth and the addition of UAS into the National Airspace System (NAS).

The greatest challenge in integrating UAS into the NAS is due to the archaic nature of the current airspace system. Much of manned aviation is based on old, well tested means of navigation and communication. These systems come in many forms, such as observing air traffic by radar, communicating over radio, distance based spacing of aircraft, and scattered sources of aviation data. Incorporating autonomous UAS into the NAS will require much more automation in all areas.

UAS will be integrated into the FAA’s NextGen program by providing surveillance, navigation, and communication capabilities that the current system does not support. The current means of separating unmanned from manned air traffic consists of separation by altitude and airspace restrictions.

In all of manned aviation, the human pilot in command is responsible for visually seeing and avoiding other aircraft. Aircraft must give way based on the right-of-way rules outlined by the FAA. As automated UAS are incorporated into the NAS, they must also be able to Detect, Sense, and Avoid (DSA) other air traffic. This will be accomplished by using a suite of sensors such as vision cameras, infrared cameras, radar, LIDAR, and traffic collision avoidance systems.

A dangerous situation can occur when a UAS is disrupted by a lost link scenario. In this situation, the aircraft may not respond to input controls or communicate back to the ground control station. When this occurs, there is a danger of a mid-air collision if the UAV is uncontrollable. A safe UAS system will have automated lost link procedures that are executed to ensure the aircraft flies a pre-programmed route, altitude, and flight termination procedure.

This was a very primary glimpse into the future of aviation, where manned and unmanned aircraft are able to safely integrate in the skies above.

References

Honeywell (2019, January 28). What is Urban Air Mobility. Retrieved from https://www.honeywell.com/en-us/newsroom/news/2019/01/what-is-urban-air-mobility

NASA (2019a, May 21). FAQs: NASA’s Drone Traffic Management Research in Reno and Corpus Christi. Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/faqs-nasa-s-drone-traffic-management-research-in-reno-and-corpus-christi/

NASA (2019b, July 11). Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM). Retrieved from https://utm.arc.nasa.gov/index.shtml