Pilots’ willingness to operate in urban air mobility integrated airspace: a moderated mediation analysis

Lakshmi Vempati,Scott R Winter,Sabrina Woods

doi:10.1139/juvs-2021-0009

Abstract

Interest in advanced air mobility (AAM) and urban air mobility (UAM) operations for on-demand passenger and cargo transport continues to grow. There is ongoing research on market demand and forecast, community acceptance, privacy, and security. There is also ongoing research by National Aeronautics and Space Administration , Federal Aviation Administration, academia, and industry on airspace integration, regulatory, process, and procedural challenges. Safe integration of UAM and AAM will also require different stakeholder perspectives such as air traffic controllers, manned aircraft pilots, remote pilots, UAM operators, and the community. This research aimed to assess the willingness of manned aircraft pilots to operate in UAM integrated airspace based on airspace complexity and UAM automation level. In addition, a moderated mediation analysis was conducted using trust and perceived risk as mediators and operator type as a moderating variable. The results indicated that automation level influenced pilots’ willingness to operate an aircraft in integrated airspace. A moderating effect of operation type on automation level and willingness to pilot an aircraft was also observed: professional pilots were more amenable to UAM operations with a pilot on board compared with remotely piloted operations. Results from the study are expected to inform airspace integration challenges, processes, and procedures for UAM integrated operations.

Highlights

During the 1970s and 80s, developing unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV) technology was primarily for bolstering military capabilities
According to a 2013 Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) study, by the year 2035, projections for the Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) military, public use and commercial fleet size will surpass 250,000, 175,000 of which will be in the commercial marketplace (RITA 2013)
We present the literature on autonomy levels, urban air mobility (UAM) concept of operations, trust in automation, manned perspectives on unmanned aircraft, challenges of see and avoid, airspace complexity and willingness framework and perceived risk assessment

Summary

Introduction

During the 1970s and 80s, developing unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV) technology was primarily for bolstering military capabilities. Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) comprise the vehicle and its command-and-control components (Gupta, Ghonge, and Jawandhiya 2013) Their rather prolific introduction into an already congested National Airspace System (NAS) has led to a scramble for both industry and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ensure safe integration. According to a 2013 Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) study, by the year 2035, projections for the UAS military, public use and commercial fleet size will surpass 250,000, 175,000 of which will be in the commercial marketplace (RITA 2013). This is more than the entire general aviation fleet size as of 2019 (FAA 2020a). This study aims to collect data to determine pilot trust and willingness to operate in a fully integrated environment

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