Insights from Data Analysis of Strategic Conflict Management Simulations for Urban Air Mobility Operations

This paper presents the lessons learned from the data analysis of simulations of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations that will be used to provide recommendations for future UAM system architecture and airspace services improvements. In support of the gradual maturation of the UAM industry, NASA has been conducting a series of UAM air traffic simulations. With industry partners for UAM airspace services, NASA recently completed collaborative simulations – collectively referred to as X4 – focusing on strategic conflict management. The architecture of the simulation system includes various software modules that were independently developed and integrated to provide airspace services to UAM operators. A detailed analysis of the data collected during simulations was conducted to support performance assessment of the X4 system architecture. This paper describes the results of the data analysis including metrics such as throughput at various resources, the detection and resolution of simulated demand-capacity imbalances using pre-departure delays, and conformance of operations to their operational intents.