Preliminary Concept of Urban Air Mobility Traffic Rules

Abstract

Driven by recent technological breakthroughs, the electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft has gained considerable attention. The widespread demand for eVTOL aircraft can be attributed to their potential use in the commercialisation of urban air mobility (UAM) in low-altitude urban airspaces. However, the urban low-altitude airspace environment is complex. UAM has a high traffic density and the eVTOL aircraft specifications are not uniform. Particularly in commercial scenarios, controlling eVTOL aircraft and ensuring safety in UAMs are the two major problems that should be addressed in future studies. The design of reasonable traffic rules is a potential solution; hence, we organised a UAM traffic rule system and proposed several alternative UAM traffic rules from three perspectives: a single eVTOL aircraft, a certain route, and key control areas. In addition, we validated these traffic rules using multi-rotor and fixed-wing eVTOL aircraft. The results show that designing reasonable traffic rules can facilitate attaining the primary objectives of commercialisation of UAM.