Socio–Technical Factors for the Integration of Urban Air Mobility and General Aviation During Landing/Take–off Operation Using Agent–Based Modeling

Here, the interactions between Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and general aviation (GA) as a socio-technical system (STS) are studied. Their characteristics are also outlined as they relate to the complexity usually associated with such kinds of systems, the aviation industry being an enterprise where both are described as subsets. Using agent-based modeling (ABM), the conceptualization of the socio-technical system (STS) model and its incorporation into the development of a NetLogo program are succinctly presented. Key elements within this complex framework were captured using high-level abstraction, including interfaces such as the physical infrastructure consisting of the airport, airspace (or highway), waypoints, runways, and so on; the social components, one of which was represented by the volume of passenger traffic to and from the airport which was further abstracted in terms of the number of outbound and inbound flights; and the electronic/digital components including surface radar as well as calls by air traffic controllers to the pilot which were also abstracted as separate-aircraft and dynamic-separate-aircraft procedures in the NetLogo code developed for the agent-based model (ABM). The results, discussion and conclusion are presented. Finally, after conducting a number of simulations with the developed NetLogo model by varying the number of airplanes and UAMs for each iteration, the setup with four airplanes and two UAMs resulting in 54 and 27 check-ins/outs over a duration of 291 ticks offered the best configuration with the least likelihood of mid-air collision occurring.