Abstract:
We present a tool suite for AAM systems analysis and design developed by the Aviation Innovation Research (AIR) Lab at UC Berkeley. The tool suite includes stochastic demand estimation for the UAM airport use case, vertiport performance estimation and sizing by solution of the balance equations for a Blocking-Before-Service network, fleet sizing by approximate solution of an EVRP-with-Time-Windows problem, and Reinforcement Learning (actor-critic ppo) for fleet management and control. The tools are supported by the lab's VERTISIM and LPSIM simulators. VERTISIM is the lab's simulator for UAM network operations. LPSIM is a multi-GPU platform multimodal regional transportation network simulator that is able to simulate a region like the San Francisco Bay Area, i.e., 20 million trips and 24 hours in 20 minutes and 16 dollars. We use these tools to show that UAM for transportation to LAX is a highly viable market and that the regional airports in the Bay Area could offer significant value to the regional transportation system if the aerospace industry is able to innovate the right aircraft.
Bio:
Raja Sengupta is Professor in the Systems Engineering and Aerospace Programs at UC Berkeley. He holds a Systems Phd from the University of Michigan. His research spans advanced air mobility, automated & connected cars, digital asset management, public health, wireless networking, and control theory. Professor Sengupta collaborates with government and industry for impact. He has been an advisor to the World Bank and NATO, recipient of USDOT's Connected Vehicle Technology award, UC Berkeley's Energy and Climate Lectures Innovation Award, and has authored over a hundred papers spanning control theory, networking, advanced air mobility, and transportation. He holds networking and aircraft control patents. His research has been standardized by the SAE into J2945. He created technology for the successful start-ups automatic.com and Responsible Robotics, and served as Principal Investigator for NASA, DoD, NSF, Caltrans, and several blue chip companies.