Strategic and Tactical Path Planning for Urban Air Mobility: Overview and Application to Real-World Use Cases

Urban air mobility requires safe and efficient airspace management, as well as effective path planning and decision-making capabilities to enable access to the urban airspace, which is predicted to be very densely populated. This paper tackles the problem of strategic and tactical path planning by p...

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Main Authors: Flavia Causa, Armando Franzone, Giancarmine Fasano
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-12-01
Series:Drones
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/7/1/11
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author Flavia Causa
Armando Franzone
Giancarmine Fasano
author_facet Flavia Causa
Armando Franzone
Giancarmine Fasano
author_sort Flavia Causa
collection DOAJ
description Urban air mobility requires safe and efficient airspace management, as well as effective path planning and decision-making capabilities to enable access to the urban airspace, which is predicted to be very densely populated. This paper tackles the problem of strategic and tactical path planning by presenting a framework specifically designed for accounting for several constraints and issues of the urban environment. Multi-objective and multi-constraint planner algorithms are developed to this aim, along with an innovative method for information simplification and manipulation. Navigation-aware and optimized trajectories were retrieved from the strategic approach. Tactical path planning was developed using three approaches that react differently to unpredicted conditions. The entire strategic–tactical pipeline was tested in two real-world use cases, representing common missions in urban environments, such as medical delivery and short-range air taxi. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology in generating the strategic path and show the different outcomes of the proposed tactical approaches, thus highlighting their advantages and drawbacks.
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spelling doaj.art-cde9845293fe409e804c3345a39e25672023-11-30T21:55:02ZengMDPI AGDrones2504-446X2022-12-01711110.3390/drones7010011Strategic and Tactical Path Planning for Urban Air Mobility: Overview and Application to Real-World Use CasesFlavia Causa0Armando Franzone1Giancarmine Fasano2Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples “Federico II”, P.le Tecchio 80, 80125 Naples, ItalyDepartment of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples “Federico II”, P.le Tecchio 80, 80125 Naples, ItalyDepartment of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples “Federico II”, P.le Tecchio 80, 80125 Naples, ItalyUrban air mobility requires safe and efficient airspace management, as well as effective path planning and decision-making capabilities to enable access to the urban airspace, which is predicted to be very densely populated. This paper tackles the problem of strategic and tactical path planning by presenting a framework specifically designed for accounting for several constraints and issues of the urban environment. Multi-objective and multi-constraint planner algorithms are developed to this aim, along with an innovative method for information simplification and manipulation. Navigation-aware and optimized trajectories were retrieved from the strategic approach. Tactical path planning was developed using three approaches that react differently to unpredicted conditions. The entire strategic–tactical pipeline was tested in two real-world use cases, representing common missions in urban environments, such as medical delivery and short-range air taxi. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology in generating the strategic path and show the different outcomes of the proposed tactical approaches, thus highlighting their advantages and drawbacks.https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/7/1/11path planningurban air mobilitytactical path planningstrategic path planningurban airspaceurban maps
spellingShingle Flavia Causa
Armando Franzone
Giancarmine Fasano
Strategic and Tactical Path Planning for Urban Air Mobility: Overview and Application to Real-World Use Cases
Drones
path planning
urban air mobility
tactical path planning
strategic path planning
urban airspace
urban maps
title Strategic and Tactical Path Planning for Urban Air Mobility: Overview and Application to Real-World Use Cases
title_full Strategic and Tactical Path Planning for Urban Air Mobility: Overview and Application to Real-World Use Cases
title_fullStr Strategic and Tactical Path Planning for Urban Air Mobility: Overview and Application to Real-World Use Cases
title_full_unstemmed Strategic and Tactical Path Planning for Urban Air Mobility: Overview and Application to Real-World Use Cases
title_short Strategic and Tactical Path Planning for Urban Air Mobility: Overview and Application to Real-World Use Cases
title_sort strategic and tactical path planning for urban air mobility overview and application to real world use cases
topic path planning
urban air mobility
tactical path planning
strategic path planning
urban airspace
urban maps
url https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/7/1/11
work_keys_str_mv AT flaviacausa strategicandtacticalpathplanningforurbanairmobilityoverviewandapplicationtorealworldusecases
AT armandofranzone strategicandtacticalpathplanningforurbanairmobilityoverviewandapplicationtorealworldusecases
AT giancarminefasano strategicandtacticalpathplanningforurbanairmobilityoverviewandapplicationtorealworldusecases