GC-1 is due to start in January 2020, with a more sophisticated GC-2 planned for the same period in 2021. NASA, which will provide access to a UAM test range to be set up at Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, says the second series of challenges is expected to address “key safety and integration barriers across the UAM ecosystem while also emphasizing critical operational challenges.” The agency also has outlined additional GC-3 and GC-4 phases, which will add further levels of maturity to the UAM system through scenarios that increase in number, complexity, technology and operational readiness, standards and regulatory emphasis.
To provide a basic framework for the initiative, NASA has developed six UAM reference missions, three nonpassenger-carrying and three passenger-carrying. These range from initial technology-state missions such as public safety vehicles and medical transport to intermediate-state tasks such as small package deliveries and intrametro air shuttles. Then, in a mature state, these progress to the most sophisticated reference missions including UAS multipackage delivery and ubiquitous intrametro taxi services.
During the formation of the reference missions, “we stumbled on something we got excited about,” says Hackenberg. “For each of them, we have defined what is the required UAM maturity level [UML],” he adds, referring to the creation of a series of notional steps toward large-scale, fully developed urban air mobility systems with tens of thousands of simultaneous operations. The initial state, which will be addressed in the early GC phases, will focus on UML-1 and UML-2. The first step toward maturity will involve early operational exploration and demonstrations of a small number of aircraft in limited environments, while UML-2 will add low-density and-complexity commercial operations with some assistance from automation.
The testing of intermediate state-level maturity will focus on UML-3 and -4, the former covering low-density, medium-complexity operations in an urban area with closely spaced landing areas and automation for scalable, weather-tolerant operations. The move to the next level, UML-4, will evaluate medium-density and -complexity operations with collaborative and responsible automated systems. These and later tests are expected to be undertaken on other ranges across the country.
“Our sweet spot is UML-4. You are talking about 100 vehicles or so, and it covers trip distance, the turnaround time of vehicles and time to recharge batteries,” says Hackenberg. With hundreds of simultaneous operations, a 100-strong fleet would have capacity to transport 5,000-10,000 passengers per day. “That’s good, because when you get 200-300 vehicles, you start to get closer to 60,000 passengers. That’s around 10% of the Washington metro system, and that starts to be significant. So that’s where we focused our Grand Challenge,” he adds.
The overall time line runs largely in parallel with much of the baseline development schedule already outlined by Uber for its Uber Air UAM plan. However, Shin says there is no specific area of overlap and hints that NASA, which is already partnered with Uber on modeling and simulation of the UAM environment, may be exploring additional cooperation with the ride-hail company. NASA believes the initiative also will provide a more sustainable platform for growth than the isolated demonstrations planned in cities such as Dubai and Tokyo. “I’m pretty sure they will succeed, but is that going to be scalable. That’s the question,” he adds.
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