Smart Urban Air Mobility

Dear Colleagues,

Severe urban traffic congestion and environmental deterioration have become significant challenges for major cities worldwide due to population growth, accelerated urbanization, and economic development. In recent years, smart technologies are being integrated in traditional transport to manage urban traffic management and innovate ground transportation modes. However, complementary solutions are needed to face the ever-increasing demand to overcome congestion.

Urban air mobility (UAM) has emerged as a promising alternative. Recent analyses have foreseen a growing market at the global level, considering the new added-value business models extending the perspective of the industries and of the service operators; the increasing need of alternative modes of transport and of green transports; and the creation of new economic spaces above cities. UAM is expected to be part of sustainable transition strategies and may assume a prominent role in the innovation of cities.

Due to its recent development, UAM cannot neglect smart technologies to better accomplish the future roadmaps towards the transition to smart cities. In line with the general definition of smart transportation, smart urban air mobility (S-UAM) can be interpreted as the application of advanced sensor, computer, electronic, and communication technologies, together with advanced management strategies in an integrated manner to improve the key enabling technologies and engineering approaches of the urban air transportation system.

This Special Issue of Smart Cities is devoted to promoting the investigation of the latest research and applications of S-UAM for advancing effective, efficient, safe, secure, resilient, and socially accepted systems for air passenger and cargo transportation within urban areas. This Special Issue seeks contributions that offer insights into the key aspects of S-UAM (technologies, systems, applications, use cases, and challenges) in the form of research articles, literature reviews, case reports, futures studies, short communications, project reports, and discussion papers. The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, the following broad topics:

• Artificial intelligence-based systems and applications in S-UAM;
• Multi-agent solutions for S-UAM applications;
• Cloud–edge–fog computing in S-UAM;
• Mobility as a service for interoperability with other transportation modes;
• S-UAM ground infrastructures;
• Cybersecurity of S-UAM systems and applications;
• Cyber-physical security of S-UAM systems and applications;
• Novel S-UAM communication solutions;
• Physical-layer security of S-UAM communications;
• Novel policy and regulatory approaches for S-UAM;
• Human factors for S-UAM;
• Social acceptance of S-UAM;
• Digital twins of S-UAM systems;
• Advanced sensors for S-UAM applications;
• Sustainable S-UAM models;
• Business models for S-UAM.

Dr. Domenico Pascarella
Dr. Gabriella Gigante
Prof. Dr. Miquel Angel Piera
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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