5G-Enabled Architectural Imperatives and Guidance for Urban Air Mobility : Enhancing Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) refers to airborne transportation systems for an urban environment that can be operated either by an on-board or remote pilot or by a fully autonomous system. As a result of this integration, current communication, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) and urban air traffic management (UATM) systems are challenged to meet the demands of such a situation. Based on NASA’s ConOps, a UAM vehicle will operate in a congested environment, so CNS and UATM systems must be robust, secure, and highly available to ensure the safety of the vehicle and UAM operations. However, researchers are currently focusing more on the design and prototyping of a UAM vehicle. Meanwhile, reliable communication to avoid collisions and adequate data exchange for positioning, navigation, and surveillance are all critical components of UAM that still need attention. In this paper, we investigate and describe the CNS requirements and the resulting CNS architecture in the context of an operational UAM environment. We also present a future road-map for a UAM CNS architecture based on available CNS technologies.

DDC Class

380: Commerce, Communications, Transport

629.13: Aviation Engineering

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5G-Enabled Architectural Imperatives and Guidance for Urban Air Mobility : Enhancing Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance