Rebalancing idle aircraft on the ground to other vertiports is essential for reducing passenger wait times at departure vertiports and minimizing the likelihood of airborne holding due to a lack of available pads and/or gates upon arrival. Rebalancing is also critical for efficient and safe Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations. However, determining whether and when to rebalance can be challenging without real-time information on the status of arriving aircraft (e.g., estimated time of arrival), as improper rebalancing decisions can result in deadheads and congested vertiports. In that sense, rebalancing can be enriched with more up-to-date (or real-time) information, thus reducing airborne delays and mitigating potential adverse effects. In this context, this study proposes a rebalancing algorithm based on real-time prediction and updates of the estimated time of arrival (ETA). Experimental results show that airborne delays and variance of these are reduced with real-time updates on ETA compared to rebalancing without ETA updates (or using the ETA on the flight plan). Furthermore, real-time updates on ETA reduce the number of delayed flights and potentially unnecessary rebalancing (e.g., deadhead flights) by providing more accurate and up-to-date arrival times compared to rebalancing without ETA updates. Sensitivity analysis of the decision time for rebalancing is also conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach under various scenarios. The results of this study can contribute to tactical fleet management for on-demand UAM services by determining rebalancing based on real-time updates of flight information.
Urban Air Mobility Fleet Rebalancing with Real-Time Updates on Estimated Time of Arrival
2024-09-29
5339547 byte
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
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ArXiv | 2023
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