ATAC and NCAR propose to develop a Low Altitude Wind Hazard Alerting and Rerouting (LAWHAR) service for UAM operations. LAWHAR addresses Subtopic A3.04’s need for dynamic route planning that considers changing environmental conditions and vehicle performance. NCAR’s recent NASA-sponsored study has shown that existing weather observing infrastructure and operational weather guidance have significant gaps at the micro scale, relevant to operating UAM vehicles in the urban airspace. These gaps are in stark contrast with NASA and UAM industry vision of weather-resistant UAM operations. LAWHAR paves the path for achieving this vision by advancing the state-of-the-art in multiple relevant areas: (1) LAWHAR leverages NCAR’s Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model for predicting low-altitude wind speeds, wind shear and turbulence associated with wind-flows across urban canopies, and applies a novel approach to predict temporally and spatially-varying wind hazard regions. This novel approach combines wind prediction data transformation (e.g., clustering) with subject matter expert reviews to predict wind hazard regions. (2) LAWHAR develops an alerting and rerouting algorithm, which considers variability in vehicle performance as regards to vulnerability to wind effects, to provide aircraft-type-sensitive wind hazard alerts and hazard-free reroutes. (3) LAWHAR leverages LES models to find optimum placement for wind sensors in an urban wind sensor network to provide high-quality guidance on wind hazards. (4) The Phase I SBIR provides a proof-of-concept demonstration on a downtown, Dallas, TX, scenario for which we already have significant amount of LES model data. LAWHAR supports the objectives of NASA’s ATM-X project and also supports NASA’s AAM National Campaign by providing guidance on urban wind sensor network design and a prototype wind hazard alerting and rerouting capability for integrated testing along with other NASA and industry UAM traffic management tools.
(1) Wind-sensitive rerouting tool for UAM research using NASA ATM-X Testbed paves the path for high weather-tolerance UAM operations
(2) Quantification of wind hazard vulnerabilities for different eVTOL vehicle types feeds NASA’s research into weather-resistant UAM operations
(3) LAWHAR enables NASA RVLT to analyze realistic wind-impacted missions for their concept vehicles
(4) Meteorological sensor network design provides sensor placement guidance for AAM National Campaign demonstrations
(1) Wind-hazard-alerting tool for UAM operators, as well as operators of helicopters and GA aircraft
(2) Wind-sensitive rerouting service (a UTM USS), including routing sensitive to varying eVTOL vehicle performance levels
(3) Tool for identifying optimal locations for urban meteorological sensors
(4) Tool for evaluating candidate vertiport sites for expected wind hazard impacts