Title:
Optimal Siting of Sub-Urban Air Mobility (sUAM) Ground Architectures using Network Flow Formulation
Optimal Siting of Sub-Urban Air Mobility (sUAM) Ground Architectures using Network Flow Formulation
Author(s)
Venkatesh, Nikhil
Payan, Alexia P.
Justin, Cedric Y.
Kee, Ethan C.
Mavris, Dimitri N.
Payan, Alexia P.
Justin, Cedric Y.
Kee, Ethan C.
Mavris, Dimitri N.
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Abstract
Air Mobility (AM) operating models have steadily made their way into public conscience
over the past decade due to increased research activity pioneered by large technology corporations
such as Uber and Amazon. Estimates concur that there are around 250 startup
businesses with 22 major players working on such technologies with over $25 billion dollars in
venture capital funding in 2017[1]. Given the meteoric rise of Air Mobility as one of the leading
21st century disruptive technologies, research effort across the spectrum of functions that can
make AM concepts a reality are burgeoning - ranging from vehicle design to operations planning.
More specifically, research efforts within the operations planning space deal with service
route identification, ground infrastructure (such as charging stations and ports) placement
and others. To this effect, the present study seeks to evaluate the feasibility and tractability of
a formalized optimization method towards the siting of "vertiports" - ground infrastructure
that aids the embarkation and disembarkation of AM commuters - as applied to a Sub-Urban
Air Mobility (sUAM) operating model. Mixed-Integer Programming (MIP) formulations offer
qualified benefits over other heuristic methods and the authors are confident of their relative
performance given the proven track record of such methods in solving generalized facility location
problems (GFLP). In this study, two optimization problems were considered: capacitated
vertiport siting, where any vertiport considered would need to adhere to capacity constraints;
and uncapacitated vertiport siting, where any vertiport considered does not have any capacity
limit and can service unlimited demand. Results indicate that a network flow formulation using
an MIP methodology is able to adequately place vertiports for sUAM business operations to
satisfy demand flows associated with home-work commute.
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Date Issued
2020-06
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Paper