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Coordinating Cooperative Perception in Urban Air Mobility for Enhanced Environmental Awareness

Timo Häckel, Luca von Roenn, Nemo Juchmann, Alexander Fay, Rinie Akkermans, Tim Tiedemann, Thomas C. Schmidt

TL;DR

This work addresses the challenge of maintaining robust environmental awareness in dense urban airspace for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) by proposing a hybrid Cooperative Perception (CP) architecture that fuses local broadcast with a centralized CP service. The authors define a CP data space informed by automotive, aviation, and drone standards and implement a central CP backend connected through ground stations to extend perceptual reach. Through OMNeT++/Artery-based simulations, they show that central coordination markedly improves the Environment Awareness Ratio (EAR) at both the backend and the UAS, at the cost of increased channel load, with an optimal ground-station density around the studied area. The results highlight the potential of centralized CP in U-space to enhance safety and scalability, while raising open questions about optimal broadcast range, update rates, and data-management strategies for larger deployments.

Abstract

The trend for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is growing with prospective air taxis, parcel deliverers, and medical and industrial services. Safe and efficient UAM operation relies on timely communication and reliable data exchange. In this paper, we explore Cooperative Perception (CP) for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), considering the unique communication needs involving high dynamics and a large number of UAS. We propose a hybrid approach combining local broadcast with a central CP service, inspired by centrally managed U-space and broadcast mechanisms from automotive and aviation domains. In a simulation study, we show that our approach significantly enhances the environmental awareness for UAS compared to fully distributed approaches, with an increased communication channel load, which we also evaluate. These findings prompt a discussion on communication strategies for CP in UAM and the potential of a centralized CP service in future research.

Coordinating Cooperative Perception in Urban Air Mobility for Enhanced Environmental Awareness

TL;DR

This work addresses the challenge of maintaining robust environmental awareness in dense urban airspace for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) by proposing a hybrid Cooperative Perception (CP) architecture that fuses local broadcast with a centralized CP service. The authors define a CP data space informed by automotive, aviation, and drone standards and implement a central CP backend connected through ground stations to extend perceptual reach. Through OMNeT++/Artery-based simulations, they show that central coordination markedly improves the Environment Awareness Ratio (EAR) at both the backend and the UAS, at the cost of increased channel load, with an optimal ground-station density around the studied area. The results highlight the potential of centralized CP in U-space to enhance safety and scalability, while raising open questions about optimal broadcast range, update rates, and data-management strategies for larger deployments.

Abstract

The trend for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is growing with prospective air taxis, parcel deliverers, and medical and industrial services. Safe and efficient UAM operation relies on timely communication and reliable data exchange. In this paper, we explore Cooperative Perception (CP) for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), considering the unique communication needs involving high dynamics and a large number of UAS. We propose a hybrid approach combining local broadcast with a central CP service, inspired by centrally managed U-space and broadcast mechanisms from automotive and aviation domains. In a simulation study, we show that our approach significantly enhances the environmental awareness for UAS compared to fully distributed approaches, with an increased communication channel load, which we also evaluate. These findings prompt a discussion on communication strategies for CP in UAM and the potential of a centralized CP service in future research.
Paper Structure (15 sections, 5 figures, 2 tables)

This paper contains 15 sections, 5 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Background and Related Work
  3. Communication in UAM
  4. Cooperative Awareness in the Aviation Domain
  5. Cooperative Perception in the Automotive Domain
  6. Coordinating Cooperative Perception in Urban Air Mobility
  7. Cooperative Perception Model for Urban Air Mobility
  8. Cooperative Perception Data Space
  9. Information Lifetime and Frequency
  10. Communication Model
  11. Case Study of Cooperative Perception in Urban Air Mobility
  12. Simulation Environment
  13. Scenarios
  14. Results
  15. Conclusion and Outlook

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: Hybrid CP model integrating local perception, CP broadcast, and a central backend service. Ground stations connect UAS in range to the backend.
  • Figure 2: Evaluation setup consisting of 200 UAS randomly distributed on a 4km-by-4km grid network. Only the scenario w/ central backend adds GS that cover the entire area.
  • Figure 3: Impact of the number of ground stations on the average EAR, channel load, and message count. The ground stations are equally spaced along the grid.
  • Figure 4: Environment Awareness Ratio (EAR) for one UAS and the backend with different communication enabled. In the scenario w/ central backend, 81 ground stations are used.
  • Figure 5: Number of known UAS for one UAS and the backend in the scenario w/ central backend using 81 ground stations.