This paper proposes a throughput-based metric for estimating airspace capacity to accommodate future air traffic in low-altitude airspace. It is motivated by the need to assess the impact of future large-scale air traffic demand on communities and existing urban airspace. In this paper, we simulate unmanned traffic in a representative area and measure the variation of traffic flow. We evaluate three conflict detection and resolution algorithms and two minimum separation requirements and present their effects on throughput. We find that, beyond an algorithm-specific aircraft inflow rate, throughput tends to decrease before the system safety reduces, and hence this metric is promising for evaluating airspace capacity. Further, we find that such a metric in conjunction with other capacity metrics may be useful in evaluating the adequacy of a conflict detection and resolution method for large-scale system operations at or close to capacity.

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Emerging Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operators propose to introduce extensive flight networks into metropolitan airspace. However, this airspace currently contains complex legacy airspace constructs and flight operations that are perceived as safe, efficient, and generally acceptable to the overflown public. Hence, Air Traffic Management (ATM) concepts to support UAM may be constrained to cause little to no interference with these legacy operations. The identification of airspace that is non-interfering and potentially "available" to these new operators is therefore a critical first step to support UAM integration. This paper introduces a geometric airspace assessment approach that considers seven existing airspace constructs. Four hypothetical ATM scenarios are developed that prescribe different degrees of UAM integration. An alpha-shape topological method is refined to process geometrically complex airspace construct polygons over an expansive geographic area and develop 3D 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.

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