Urban Air Mobility (UAM): Preliminary Task Analysis for a Terminal Corridor Vertiport Concept of Operation

Abstract

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) refers to a transportation system of cargo and passenger in urban areas. UAM concepts include a mix of onboard, remotely operated, and increasingly autonomous operations (NASA, 2017). Although mature concepts will likely employ remotely piloted vehicle operations or increasing autonomous systems to operate a fleet or network of UAM vehicles, early UAM concepts will likely employ onboard human pilots operating the vehicles (Holbrook et al., 2020). In this paper, a task analysis is presented for a potential near-term UAM concept of operation. The use case is that of terminal UAM operations in a designated corridor with the following operators: UAM fleet manager, onboard UAM pilots, Tower Controller, Vertiport Manager and Automation. The results of the task analysis highlight the roles, responsibilities, and tasks performed by different operators that can inform future design of UAM terminal operations.

Keywords: Urban Air Mobility, Concepts of Operation, Task Analysis

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1006996