Advanced Air Mobility

Bringing Intuitive Weather Translation to the Urban Air Mobility

UAM Weather Impact Model

Looking to operate a vertiport or need to understand and schedule your vehicles in and out of the fast-emerging UAM markets? We have designed and prototyped a modular, weather-aware Urban Air Mobility (UAM) System Model (USM) comprised of a user-definable, flexible rule base, a weather translation module, and a superfast-time simulation engine. Our system is able to accommodate any future urban-scale weather products or weather data formats, an import benefit of our simulator developed under a NASA Phase III SBIR. 

A general-purpose UAM system simulator can support a wide range of use cases including: 

  • Designing a more robust system of UAM airspace corridors and vertiport approach zones; 
  • Reflecting the specifics of each individual metropolitan area, with its unique terrain, cityscape, weather and UAM route and vertiport network; 
  • Developing and maturing UAM airspace capacity management rules related to these impacts; 
  • Evaluating and optimizing UAM operators’ fleet composition/planning and flight schedules; 
  • Providing weather-resilient and flight-prioritized equity and accessibility principles; and 
  • Managing UAM airspace capacity affected by congestion due to high-volume, constantly changing traffic demand and/or inclement weather impacts. 

USM would contribute to maintaining weather-resilient, efficient UAM operations, helping to coordinate operational responses between UAM vehicle operators, streamlining weather-constrained urban airspace management and facilitating interaction with vertiport capacity management tools. USM would act as an autonomous “simulation / nowcasting probe” receiving continuous weather and traffic forecast updates up to several hours ahead and using machine learning techniques combined with predictive simulations to evaluate possible UAM traffic management actions in real time.