A Concept of Airspace Configuration and Operational Rules for UAS in Current Airspace

Deployments and operations of civilian unmanned aircraft in urban environments have been seeing a significant rise, which increases the demand of urban unmanned air traffic and the need for airspace. Large-scale UAV operations in urban environments may pose risks to people on the ground and manned aircraft in the air. To safely and efficiently utilize the urban airspace, several concept of operations (ConOps) about urban airspace utilization are proposed and demonstrated in this paper. The proposed ConOps concentrates on airspace configuration and operational rules from three aspects. Firstly, AirMatrix airspace configuration is introduced and expanded with operational rules in the network. To balance the flight flexibility and airspace complexity, different resolution AirMartix is introduced. Moreover, AirMatrix corridor is proposed to connect reserved areas with safe and efficient traffic flows considering Communication, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) performance. Secondly, Free-Flight Operation (FFO) and Trajectory-Based Operation (TBO) are illustrated and compared in terms of operational efficiency and airspace capacity based on simulation studies. Thirdly, under the AirMatrix framework, airspace risk assessment and contingency management are investigated to provide suggestions for urban airspace safety management and fail-safe system design.