Research On Surface Layout Of Vertiports For Urban Air Mobility

With the acceleration of urbanization,the number of private cars is increasing and the traffic congestion is becoming more and more serious.With the rapid development of electric Vertical Take-off and Landing(e VTOL),the concept of Urban Air Mobility(UAM)has gradually attracted people’s attention.UAM refers to the activities of carrying people and goods in the urban low-altitude airspace mainly using VTOL/STOL and related system facilities.Compared with ground travel,UAM has significant advantages in travel time.As an important part of UAM,the location of the vertiport is likely to be in the urban environment with limited space,which puts forward high requirements for the design and layout of the vertiport,and needs to maximize the throughput in a limited area.First of all,this thesis combs the research status of vertiports at home and abroad,and selects the main design parameters related to vertiports.In the process of aircraft surface operation at vertiport,the model of vertiport surface operation is established with taxiing and turnaround process as the focus and the minimum average total taxiing distance as the goal.Secondly,based on the size of e VTOL,the size and spacing of the components of the vertiport are assumed.Three types of vertiport layouts-Perimeter design,Central design,and Disconnected design are designed.The characteristics of the three layouts are described.Then,the influence of wind conditions on the operation of the vertiport is introduced,and the configuration set of available takeoff and landing areas under different wind conditions is determined by combining static and dynamic constraints.Finally,based on the previous research,the surface area utilization of each layout is analyzed and compared.The taxiing route between the takeoff and landing area and the gate is determined by the shortest path algorithm,and the taxiing time is determined in terms of the total taxiing distance of the draw,and then the airport capacity and throughput under different configurations are compared.The analysis results show that,according to the assumptions in the thesis,the operation efficiency of each takeoff and landing area equipped with five gates is the highest.The Perimeter design covers the largest area,but the passenger waiting area is complete,which is convenient for unified management;The capacity of the Central design is slightly larger in comparison,and when each takeoff and landing area is equipped with more than six gates,the floor area is the smallest,but the passenger waiting area is divided into four parts;When each takeoff and landing area of the Disconnected design corresponds to four gates,the required area is the smallest and congestion is not easy to occur during taxiing.However,when some takeoff and landing areas cannot be used for approach and departure due to special reasons,the operational efficiency of the separated layout is significantly lower than that of other layouts.Through the research on the surface layout of vertiports in this thesis,a new idea is provided for the subsequent research and design of vertiports.