Evaluation of urban air mobility systems considering regulatory and operational constraints

Abstract

[EN] For the past few decades, the range of urban means of transportation has been widening significantly as a consequence of society’s needs increasing and becoming more demanding when it comes to urban mobility. Such continuous growth of coexistent ground vehicles around city centers is becoming a millstone for society as it is leading to issues, such as traffic jams, increasing CO2 emissions and other air pollution. However, reducing the variety of urban transport cannot solve these problems, as the population size is constantly enlarging, and thus, so is the mobility demand. Therefore, the solution to supply urban mobility without further overcrowding the city centers is to incorporate the airspace as a new transportation dimension. This thesis aims at evaluating the implementation of urban air mobility with the purpose of alleviating ground congestion and ultimately, improving the urban quality of life. In order to determine the most efficient way of implementing urban air mobility, this bachelor’s thesis considers the following aspects: Why will urban air mobility be accepted by society, what type of vehicle will carry out preferred transportation mode, what limitations might arise and what regulations must be complied. With the purpose of answering these questions, this thesis provides a synthesis of a previous extensive reading about how social demand of mobility has evolved, as well as an assessment of several models of air vehicles with the aim of determining the most suitable design. By considering relevant navigation laws that an air vehicle must fulfill when integrated in the urban airspace, this thesis provides a tradeoff between optimal technical parameters and legislation limits. Consequently, a set of improvements on the initial selected vehicle are suggested in order to obtain an optimum design which accomplishes an entire satisfaction of the regulations while fulfilling the society’s mobility requirements.

[ES] Tras un estudio de la evolución de la movilidad, se propone en este trabajo, la posible integración de un sistema que permita la movilidad aérea urbana. Para ello, se conlleva un estudio del vehículo aéreo que podría cumplir con esta función, al igual que las infraestructuras que éste requeriría, como las leyes y regulaciones, terrestres y del espacio aéreo, que se le aplicarían.