Requirements-based Generation of Optimal Vertical Takeoff and Landing Trajectories for Electric Aircraft

The introduction of urban air mobility by means of electric vehicles capable of vertical takeoff and landing represents a major transformation of civil aviation. As traffic density increases in urban areas, novel requirements are introduced to guarantee safe operations, most notably in the EASA SC-VTOL specification. We present an automated process for generating trajectories considering such regulatory requirements and associated operational procedures while optimizing for energy efficiency. The corresponding optimal control problems are derived automatically from a flexible trajectory definition database expressing the airspace constraints and operational requirements for vertical takeoff and landing trajectories in the vicinity of vertiports. A safety gateway verifies the feasibility of the generated trajectories.     «

The introduction of urban air mobility by means of electric vehicles capable of vertical takeoff and landing represents a major transformation of civil aviation. As traffic density increases in urban areas, novel requirements are introduced to guarantee safe operations, most notably in the EASA SC-VTOL specification. We present an automated process for generating trajectories considering such regulatory requirements and associated operational procedures while optimizing for energy efficiency. Th...     »