Simulation Studies of 4D Volume-based Pre-departure Strategic Deconfliction under Wind Uncertainties for Package Delivery sUAS

This research aims to study the trade-off between safety and efficiency of 4D volume-based pre-departure strategic deconfliction (SD) under wind uncertainty in the small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) traffic management (UTM) environment for beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) flight operations, specifically considering unmanned aircraft (UA-to-UA) conflicts. In this research, simulation-based studies are performed using NASA’s Flexible Engine for Fast-time Evaluation of Flight Environments (Fe3 ) simulator by varying operational volume block (OVB) sizing, wind uncertainty (magnitude and direction), sUAS package delivery demand rate, and air traffic complexity. The simulation results suggest that employing 4D volume-based pre-departure strategic deconfliction using relatively larger OVB sizing does not always ensure higher-level of safety when sUAS are flying in a constant airspeed mode under wind uncertainty. Therefore, safety in the UTM ecosystem under wind uncertainty is contingent upon additional conflict management services and the presence of flight control features, for example, the participating sUAS maintaining a constant groundspeed.