Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is a rapidly emerging industry targeting delivery of air transportation services around metropolitan areas with the potential for aviation to become a practical part of everyday life while leveraging emerging technologies and operational concepts. This whitepaper, a collaboration between NASA’s Air Mobility Pathfinders (AMP) project and Wisk, explores the interoperability between crewed and uncrewed aircraft in UAM operations, leveraging operational concepts put forth in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) UAM Concept of Operations (ConOps) for the Midterm UAM phase. Specifically, UAM aircraft are envisioned to takeoff and land from vertiports and primarily operate within Cooperative Areas (CAs). CAs are designated as airspace volumes with specific requirements for performance, communication, and surveillance in which UAM Operators follow cooperative operating practices (COPs). Additionally, Third-Party Service Providers (TSPs) are envisioned to play a crucial role in conflict management, including both strategic and tactical deconfliction within the CAs.

This paper focuses on the integration of uncrewed aircraft into UAM operations, exploring how crewed and uncrewed aircraft can operate alongside each other while leveraging access to the same UAM resources and tactical separation services. Discussion of the differences between introducing uncrewed UAM operations compared to only crewed UAM operations is provided. Additionally, the varying roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders between the initial introduction of uncrewed UAM aircraft and “Midterm Operations,” as defined in the FAA UAM ConOps, are explored. It is proposed that interoperability between Visual and Instrument Flight Rules (VFR and IFR) can be initially reached through the application of cooperative operations.

To understand how separation provision can be applied to UAM operations within a CA, RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) charts are presented to detail the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders for Midterm Uncrewed UAM Operations within three architectural solutions for separation provision, which are referred to as Architecture 1, Architecture 2, and Architecture 3. Architecture 1 assigns separation provision responsibility to the aircraft and its onboard automation systems for both crewed and uncrewed operations. In Architecture 2, separation provision is the responsibility of the human pilot in command in crewed operations; in uncrewed operations, Architecture 2 relies on the remotely located human pilot in command and the automation within the ground station, which are together considered to be a single performer, as the responsible entity for separation provision. In Architecture 3, a TSP is primarily responsible for separation provision in all operations.

These three architectures represent distinct potential options for future UAM operations, and the relative tradeoffs of each architecture are discussed. Architecture 2 is believed to be the most readily realizable architecture for Midterm operations, with Architectures 1 and 3 anticipated to take longer timeframes to develop. The ability of Architecture 2 to scale to high operational tempos indicative of more mature UAM operations is an area needing further research, while Architectures 1 and 3, which represent generally opposing viewpoints on functional allocation, are believed to provide pathways to achieving high-tempo UAM operations. If Architecture 2 were to be implemented initially but found unable to scale to high operational tempos, Architecture 3 would offer a more logical progression pathway than Architecture 1 to achieve higher-tempo operations. Other considerations, such as broader integration with legacy components of the NAS, would need to be considered in the future as part of the architecture selection.

Regardless of the architecture, interoperable crewed and uncrewed UAM operations were deemed implementable when three major assumptions are met. First, the group postulated that a DO-365 compliant detect-and-avoid (DAA) capability would be required for both crewed and uncrewed operations. Second, an Integrated Operating Picture (IOP) is believed to be necessary for all cooperative operations to successfully interoperate within cooperative areas. Third, sharing intent—including strategic and tactical intent—is also believed to be an essential component of safe operations within cooperative areas. These three assumptions warrant further discussion with a broader group of UAM stakeholders and represent areas of future research.

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