On the understanding of the current status of urban air mobility development and its future prospects: commuting in a flying vehicle as a new paradigm

Abstract

UAM has the potential to disrupt air transportation, providing disruptive innovation not only to aviation but also to mobility systems and urban planning. Underpinned by technological advances in batteries, as well as in electric and distributed propulsion that facilitate the design of novel aircraft types with the capability for VTOL, the UAM is attracting the attention of an extensive list of stakeholders, institutions and companies. It also covers a broad range of different areas of interest that have to be considered by a holistic and multidisciplinary approach in order to derive its full potential. This paper aims to provide an in-depth qualitative analysis of relevant aspects of UAM development and implementation. The added value of this paper is in assessing the current status and prospects of the most important UAM areas by analysing them from the literature and practice point of views. The paper also deals with the main challenges and multidisciplinary constraints that might slow down the pace towards the successful application of the subject concept.

The first author is a Serra Hunter Fellow. This research has been partially supported through the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence (2019–2023) under the grant CEX2018-000797-S funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. The authors would like to acknowledge and thank the fruitful discussions and advise received from many colleagues. Special mention should be made to Dr. Enric Pastor, Dr. Xavier Prats, and Dr. Miquel Estrada, the three of them associate professors in the UPC-BarcelonaTech, as well as Prof. Nataša Bojković, full professor at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering of the University of Belgrade. Finally, the authors would like to thank the reviewers for the comments that help improving the quality of the manuscript.

Peer Reviewed

Postprint (published version)