The aviation industry stands at a pivotal moment as Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) promises to transform how we move through urban airspace, but scaling these operations safely requires reimagining how we manage low-altitude airspace. Airspace users require new structures, greater route predictability, new data services, and seamless integration with existing operations.
SkyGrid’s new joint white paper with Eve Air Mobility, Enabling Advanced Air Mobility – Automated Traffic Management Services for Low-Altitude Operations, explores how Third-Party Service Providers (TSPs) can deliver automated traffic management services that address the needs of the AAM airspace and beyond while also reducing the investment required by Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs).
Low-Altitude Traffic Management Services
AAM aims to operate at high densities in low-altitude airspace, comparable to operational tempos observed at high-capacity airports today. To enable high-tempo operations, AAM flights need to follow predictable route structures supported by traffic management services.
This requires ANSPs to have enhanced surveillance coverage and the capacity to manage significantly more air traffic. TSPs can support ANSPs by providing them with new surveillance data and traffic management automation tailored for AAM operations. TSPs will work with ANSPs to tailor these capabilities to their specific airspace needs, giving ANSPs a greater ability to track and organize local AAM traffic.
SkyGrid’s Demand-Capacity Balancing (DCB) function will support vertiport slot reservations and deconfliction of flight schedules before flights depart, thus minimizing the probability of in-flight conflicts between AAM operations. In the air, additional advisories can be provided to operators to maintain proper spacing of aircraft with minimal Air Traffic Control (ATC) involvement.
Integration Alongside Existing Operations
Careful AAM trajectory planning and traffic management will be essential to ensure new operations don’t disrupt traditional air traffic. Routes must be well-designed to avoid conflicts with jet aircraft, and appropriate departure times must be selected to facilitate traffic flow management for AAM flights.
New traffic management automation, such as Departure Metering, will help ANSPs manage AAM traffic flow into major airports and minimize the impacts on conventional operations. SkyGrid’s DCB and Departure Metering functions work together to ensure AAM flights depart at the most appropriate times, minimizing the likelihood of conflicts between AAM operations and traditional jet operations. In addition to reducing ATC workload, these functions will improve the way in which AAM operations are integrated at major airports alongside traditional airline operations.
Novel Data Services for Highly Automated Aircraft
For uncrewed and autonomous aircraft, the absence of a pilot must be compensated with additional onboard sensors, ground-based data, and automation to give the aircraft system an equivalent level of situational awareness. Access to high-assurance traffic surveillance data is an essential part of this situational awareness, as it could support traffic avoidance for uncrewed AAM aircraft
SkyGrid will provide high-integrity, low-latency, secure Ground-Based Traffic Surveillance (GBTS) data to ANSPs and operators, giving them a common high-assurance view of AAM traffic operating in the airspace.
The Path Forward
Scaling AAM operations safely at high-tempo will require coordinated action across the ecosystem, early adoption of automated services by ANSPs, collaboration among regulatory bodies worldwide, new airspace structures that define where AAM aircraft can operate, and new flight rules that capture new operational behaviors. The use of ground-based automation in safety-critical functions, such as in traffic management, will require new systems and operational approval processes.
Learn more about how TSPs can help automate traffic management in the white paper.
