Exploring Concepts of Operations for On-Demand Passenger Air TransportationIn recent years, a surge of interest in "flying cars" for city commutes has led to rapid development of new technologies to help make them and similar on-demand mobility platforms a reality. To this end, this paper provides analyses of the stakeholders involved, their proposed operational concepts, and the hazards and regulations that must be addressed. Three system architectures emerged from the analyses, ranging from conventional air taxi to revolutionary fully autonomous aircraft operations, each with vehicle safety functions allocated differently between humans and machines. Advancements for enabling technologies such as distributed electric propulsion and artificial intelligence have had major investments and initial experimental success, but may be some years away from being deployed for on-demand passenger air transportation at scale.
Document ID
20170006498
Acquisition Source
Langley Research Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Nneji, Victoria Chibuogu (Duke Univ. Durham, NC, United States)
Stimpson, Alexander (Duke Univ. Durham, NC, United States)
Cummings, Mary (Duke Univ. Durham, NC, United States)
Goodrich, Kenneth H. (NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, VA, United States)
Date Acquired
July 12, 2017
Publication Date
June 5, 2017
Subject Category
Air Transportation And Safety
Report/Patent Number
NF1676L-27119ATIO.TFPC-01
Meeting Information
Meeting: AIAA Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations Conference (AVIATION 2017)
Location: Denver, CO
Country: United States
Start Date: June 5, 2017
End Date: June 9, 2017
Sponsors: American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics