Command and Control Concepts for a Lift Plus Cruise Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Vehicle

Abstract

Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) vehicles have the potential to enable cost effective Urban Air Mobility (UAM) applications. Many of these vehicle concepts will takeoff vertically like a helicopter, transition to fly like an airplane, and then transition back to land vertically like a helicopter. However, these concepts may also pose several challenging handling and control problems, which must be addressed prior to safe and reliable urban operations. This paper investigates some of these challenges by evaluating different command and control concepts for a conceptual Lift Plus Cruise vehicle designed by NASA’s Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology (RVLT) project. Four different command concepts with increasing levels of automation are developed. The command and control architecture for these concepts is presented along with findings from the evaluation of these concepts in a series of three piloted studies in the Vertical Motion Simulator at NASA Ames Research Center, where pilots flew operationally relevant flight test maneuvers specifically designed to expose potential deficiencies. The higher-level control systems and the associated pilot interfaces were shown to improve performance and handling in many cases, especially for higher precision and lower to moderate aggression maneuvers. The benefits were limited for higher aggression tasks in environmentally stressing conditions, due to the slower response of the automation and inherent limitations of the vehicle design, which highlights the potential need for tradeoffs between concept of operations and vehicle capabilities.