NASA Teams with Uber on Safety of Future Urban Airspace

May 16, 2018

NASA’s definition of “urban air mobility” is a safe and efficient system for vehicles, piloted or not, to move passengers and cargo within a city. (NASA)

NASA has teamed with Uber Technologies to further explore concepts and technologies related to urban air mobility (UAM) to ensure a safe and efficient system for future air transportation in populated areas. Uber will share its plans for implementing an urban aviation rideshare network, and NASA will use its airspace management computer modeling and simulation to assess the impacts of small aircraft in crowded environments.

At its research facility at the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport, NASA will use the data supplied by Uber to simulate a small passenger-carrying aircraft as it flies through DFW airspace during peak scheduled air traffic. Analysis of these simulations will identify safety issues as these new aircraft take to the air in an already crowded air traffic control system.

Source