High-Density Automated Vertiport Concept of Operations

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) vision for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) includes Urban Air Mobility (UAM) – a concept involving vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, decentralized (or federated) traffic management, and new infrastructure to support urban, suburban, and rural flight operations. High-density performance-based routes or corridors enable prompt transportation of people and goods from node to node, where each node represents a vertiport, defined as an identifiable ground or elevated area used for the takeoff and landing of VTOL aircraft. In the presence of uncertainty surrounding aircraft turnaround time on the ground, vertiports are the critical end points in scheduling, sequencing, and spacing (SSS) of aircraft in dense metropolitan environments. This Concept of Operations (ConOps) includes vertiports of varying sizes, configurations, service offerings, and locations. UAM air vehicles include conventional rotorcraft, unmanned VTOL aircraft, and novel piloted VTOL aircraft. This ConOps focuses on operations at a high-density vertiport, supported by a Vertiport Automation System (VAS) with high-throughput operation capabilities under conditions defined as NASA’s Urban Air Mobility Maturity Level Four (UML-4).