Next-Gen Maintenance Framework for Urban Air Mobility Vehicles
2022-26-1165
05/26/2022
- Event
- Content
- Urban Air Mobility (UAM) vehicles are set to revolutionize the mobility of man and material in near future. One of the key areas to explore is how operational efficiency can be maximized through the next generation Maintenance framework. Compared to the traditional aircrafts, the UAM vehicles will introduce many new and unique maintenance challenges such as: 1. The volume of UAM vehicles is going to be very high and involves frequent, short trips resulting in increased need for maintenance. 2. UAMs may be of hybrid nature (rotary and fixed wing) with a complex interplay of actuation and propeller-based controls. In addition, UAMs will have Electric Motors which involve complex maintenance of parts. 3. High Power Battery is another key component which involves handling the removal, replacement and charging, which requires an effective Battery Management System. 4. Efficient Inventory/Parts Management including NFF reduction is going to play a vital role because Parts, not labor, are the primary drivers of overall maintenance costs. 5. UAM autonomous operations may require greater rigor on the maintenance and its integrity levels. Considering above challenges, the UAM operational models may fundamentally change how aircraft maintenance is conducted and standards to which maintenance technicians are trained which drives the need for the next-gen maintenance system. One of the key aspects of UAM is low altitude flying. This enables cellular technologies to be leveraged for air-to-ground as well as air-to-air communication. This implies a low cost, high speed air-to-ground data pipe is available, which leads to the concept of Digital Twin to be leveraged to optimize the operation and maintenance. This enables near real time availability of the state of UAM vehicle and its subsystems, even when it is flying. This paper captures the Next-Gen Maintenance framework along with several value added services that can be built around it.
- Citation
- Kulkarni, S., Elahi, I., Kadeppagari, M., and Panicker, R., "Next-Gen Maintenance Framework for Urban Air Mobility Vehicles," SAE Technical Paper 2022-26-1165, 2022, .