Toward Safe Integration of UAM in Terminal Airspace: UAM Route Feasibility Assessment Using Probabilistic Aircraft Trajectory Prediction

초록

Integrating Urban Air Mobility (UAM) into airspace managed by Air Traffic Control (ATC) poses significant challenges, particularly in terminal airspace featuring shared operational demands. This study presents a feasibility assessment framework for evaluating potential UAM route integration under shared-use conditions. The framework employs probabilistic trajectory prediction based on conditional Normalizing Flows to model short-term trajectory distributions of conventional aircraft, and enables UAM aircraft to perform tactical speed adjustments to maintain safe separation. A case study over the Seoul metropolitan area evaluates how UAM operations respond to surrounding air traffic across multiple altitudes and route configurations. Results show that routes positioned lower and farther from both the airport and the city center maintain greater separation margins and lower delay variability, whereas routes near the airport experience more frequent and complex interactions. The resulting separation and delay metrics provide quantitative indicators of UAM responsiveness to existing air traffic and support safety-efficiency evaluations for route planning.

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