Geometric approach towards airspace assessment for emerging operations

Abstract

Emerging urban air mobility operators propose to introduce extensive flight networks into metropolitan airspace. However, this airspace currently contains complex legacy airspace structure and flight operations that are perceived as safe, efficient, and generally acceptable to the overflown public. Hence, air traffic management concepts to support these emerging operators may be constrained to cause little to no interference with legacy operations. The identification of airspace that is noninterfering and potentially “available” to these new operators is therefore a critical first step toward their integration. This paper introduces a geometric airspace assessment approach that considers seven features of airspace that may preclude these new operations (that is, airspace constructs). Four hypothetical air traffic management scenarios are developed that prescribe different degrees of integration. An alpha-shape topological method is refined to process geometrically complex airspace construct polygons over an expansive geographic area and develop three-dimensional mappings of airspace availability. The approach is demonstrated in the San Francisco Bay Area and is readily extensible to other locations. It is envisioned to be useful in identification of viable takeoff and landing sites; evaluation of the sensitivity of airspace availability to separation or trajectory conformance requirements; and flight route design, throughput estimation, and risk analysis.