Feasibility Study of Short Takeoff and Landing Urban Air Mobility Vehicles using Geometric Programming

Courtin, Christopher; Burton, M.J.; Butler, Patrick J.; Yu, Alison; Vascik, Parker D.; Hansman, R. John

doi:10.2514/6.2018-4151

Cited by 31 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The performance capabilities of near-term eVTOL aircraft were not perceived to match the needs of the air EMS mission, especially in terms of range. However, future investigations should consider the potential of eSTOL vehicles for Air EMS operations [27].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities to Enhance Air Emergency Medical Service Scale through New Vehicles and Operations

Chappelle

Vascik

et al. 2018

2018 Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations Conference

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Air Emergency Medical Service (Air EMS) provides unique and important medical transport capabilities to society. Air EMS can move patients or live organs more rapidly than surface modes over long distances or congested areas. Air EMS also provides unparalleled access to accident scenes in regions where surface transportation is compromised such as in the backcountry or during disaster scenarios. However, despite these unique capabilities, Air EMS is currently provided to only a small minority of the most critical medical cases. This is due to the high historical cost and risk of airborne operations. Air EMS costs are driven primarily by the high level of availability required of these services and their low utilization. The elevated accident rate compared to other forms of aviation is in large part due to the operation of these services to and from off-field landing areas with unmarked and perhaps unknown obstacles. This research investigates opportunities to increase the number of Air EMS operations provided in a region by reducing the cost per operation and increasing the level of care. Significant recent investments in Urban Air Mobility (UAM) systems are maturing a new class of electric aircraft and automation technologies that may provide benefits to Air EMS operations. Furthermore, opportunities to deploy Air EMS assets as part of a UAM system to increase utilization and reduce costs through revenue management are also reviewed. Finally, potential pathways to leverage Air EMS as a proving ground and forcing function to overcome constraints in air traffic control and community acceptance for broader UAM services are discussed. The results of this study suggest that near-term electric aircraft are not expected to meet the requirements of the Air EMS mission and also provide little cost reduction potential for the industry. However, new operational models that leverage UAM markets and airline revenue management systems show promise to enhance Air EMS scale. Finally, flight automation technologies in development for UAM aircraft show potential to increase Air EMS safety.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities to Enhance Air Emergency Medical Service Scale through New Vehicles and Operations

Chappelle

Vascik

et al. 2018

2018 Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations Conference

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“…The cruise speed constraints we explore are between the minimum speed and recommended cruise speed for the Tecnam p2006t. These nonlinear constraints are formulated to be greater than 50, 100, and 150 mph (22,45, and 67 m/s) at noise levels less than the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulation of 76 dBa (discussed in section V.B). Figure 10 shows the minimum takeoff distance Pareto fronts for varying numbers of propellers and cruise speed constraints.…”

Section: A Cruise Speed Sweepmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Also, for the 22 m/s case, the cruise speed constraint is not active (indicated by the greater-than symbol) meaning that the converged solutions satisfy the constraint by achieving a higher cruise speed than the minimum bound constraint. The At these takeoff distances, there are thousands of potential STOL airfield locations within major city limits [22], meaning that DEP applied to STOL urban transport could be a feasibility even in the immediate future. If we next focus on only the ground roll distance part of the takeoff, as shown in fig.…”

Section: A Cruise Speed Sweepmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…11, we can start to make some inferences regarding the takeoff requirements with no obstacle clearance, such as the top of a building. Keeping in mind the limitations of the ground roll distance calculation as described in section III.A, the number of potential urban locations for full balanced field length takeoff strips raises to the tens of thousands [22]. As will be discussed in the future work section, this study is intended to be a mid-fidelity conceptual feasibility study, indicating further studies in the area are needed to access things such as blown wing stall, landing approach, and powered deceleration.…”

Section: A Cruise Speed Sweepmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the predecessor to this work [21], we used a propeller-on-wing aerodynamic model and electric component performance modeling to show an 80% reduction in takeoff rolling distance using an optimal distributed electric propulsion design as opposed to an optimal two-propeller electric configuration. More recently, Courtin et al [22] conducted a feasibility analysis of the STOL concept for urban air transport with the geometric programming (GP) method. They took a broad approach to the STOL urban air transport problem including takeoff rolling distance, landing distance, wing spar sizing using root bending moment, propulsion effects via 2D jets, and lift augmentation using a momentum balance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Takeoff and Performance Trade-Offs of Retrofit Distributed Electric Propulsion for Urban Transport

Moore

Ning

2019

Journal of Aircraft

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While vertical takeoff and landing aircraft have shown promise for urban air transport, distributed electric propulsion on existing aircraft may offer immediately implementable alternatives. Distributed electric propulsion could potentially decrease takeoff distances enough to enable thousands of potential inter-city runways. This conceptual study explores the effects of a retrofit of open-bladed electric propulsion units. To model and explore the design space we use blade element momentum method, vortex lattice method, linear-beam finite element analysis, classical laminate theory, composite failure, empirically-based blade noise modeling, motor and motor-controller mass models, and gradient-based optimization. With liftoff time of seconds and the safe total field length for this aircraft type undefined, we focused on the minimum conceptual takeoff distance. We found that 16 propellers could reduce the takeoff distance by over 50% compared to the optimal 2 propeller case. This resulted in a conceptual minimum takeoff distance of 20.5 meters to clear a 50 ft (15.24 m) obstacle. We also found that when decreasing the allowable noise by approximately 10 dBa, the 8 propeller case performed the best with a 43% reduction in takeoff distance compared to the optimal 2 propeller case. This resulted in a noise-restricted conceptual minimum takeoff distance of 95 meters.

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Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Integration to Urban Planning

Perperidou

Kirgiafinis

2023

Lecture Notes in Intelligent Transportation and Infrastructure

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Feasibility Study of Short Takeoff and Landing Urban Air Mobility Vehicles using Geometric Programming

Cited by 31 publications

References 20 publications

Opportunities to Enhance Air Emergency Medical Service Scale through New Vehicles and Operations

Opportunities to Enhance Air Emergency Medical Service Scale through New Vehicles and Operations

Takeoff and Performance Trade-Offs of Retrofit Distributed Electric Propulsion for Urban Transport

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Integration to Urban Planning

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