Numerical study and optimization of a novel architecture of Vertiport and Vertistop for Urban Air Mobility

摘要

Currently the VTOL world sees a high number of players investing in electrification, especially coming from the lower end of the market: like commercial drones and startups. Electric engines allow for new architectures and configurations, and partially simplify the design. Simplifying design, lowering cost of development and maintenance, has led to imagine the use of the eVTOL in the passengers' air transportation market, currently reserved to VIP and high net worth individuals. The shift is potentially so radical that a new name has been coined: Urban Air Mobility. This new market is widely imagined as a radical change compared to the current situation: with more traffic, simplified procedures for boarding and in some cases the use of unmanned or remotely piloted vehicles. This leads to the conclusion that the whole transportation system architecture will have to be upgraded or modified to allow for this to happen. Many projects are already running in this direction regarding specific topics, like SESAR JU [1] for Air Traffic Management. This paper treats the Ground Infrastructure, what is commonly referred as Heliport. In the paper a novel architecture envisioned for Urban Air Mobility is proposed and analyzed.