Urban Air Mobility (UAM)

Dear Colleagues,

The beginning of the 2020s finds connected multimodality at the forefront of urban mobility transformation. Cities grow larger (It is expected that Europe's population in urban areas will increase from today's 74% to about 83.7% in 2050^[1]) and increasingly face problems caused by transport and traffic (Congestion costs nearly 2% of the EU’s GDP annually, while 85% of the EU’s urban population is exposed to fine particulate matter PM2.5 at levels deemed harmful to health ^[2]). To face this challenge, cities increasingly strive to implement SUMPs (Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans) to increase the quality of life in their areas and encourage economic growth. Meanwhile, Urban Air Mobility (UAM) offers a promising opportunity to mitigate road (surface) congestion by integrating an additional modality/dimension in the urban mobility landscape. Nonetheless, on the path to fully urban operations of capable automated autonomous aircrafts and integrated UAM services, still plenty of questions remain open. This Special Issue aims to provide a platform for bringing together research advances made over the recent years in the domain of urban air mobility, including aspects such as:

• Advanced air mobility (AAM);
• UAM operations planning and integration;
• UAM services planning and integrations;
• Path planning;UAV sensing (radar, lidar, camera, etc.);
• Digital twin for UAM;
• Virtual certification;
• Flight dynamics;
• Noise and emissions modelling;
• Emergency landing solutions;
• Autonomous flight control;
• UAM decision making algorithms;
• Emergency logistics.

[1] United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2018). World Urbanization Prospects: Ed. 2018.

[2] European Environment Agency, Air quality in Europe report (2016), Copenhagen, Denmark.