Description: Interest in Advanced Air Moblity (AAM) continues to grow. eVTOL technology demonstrators are currently conducting regular remotely piloted and autonomous operations, and as flight hours continue to rise, the learning and understanding of these systems continues to develop. Several of the major eVTOL developers have announced and are developing vehicles intended for FAA and EASA certification respectively. These aircraft are, unlike the demonstrator aircraft, expected to be piloted, at least as the technology continues to develop. On the U.S. side, the FAA are currently working together with industry, research, and academia, to investigate various aspects of the enabling technology and certification approaches, to ensure that these vehicles will reach the desired level of safety. Critical aspects to ensure safety are the determination of safe envelopes and the safety of proposed Envelope Protection (EP) methods. A team led by Systems Technology, Inc. has been developing the UAM Pilot Assessment Software System (U-PASS) toolbox that utilizes the Task-Pilot-Vehicle (TPV) approach to assess safety in terms of handling qualities and comfort in terms of ride qualities. To build on the work currently being completed via the ongoing Phase II for NASA, the enhancement effort is proposed to investigate aspects of EP and determination of safe operational envelopes, which can be used in the design process to ensure safety. This effort will begin by determining handling qualities task requirements for envelope protection, and necessary updates to the software. Various EP strategies will be modeled and tested within the UPASS software and analysis techniques will be developed. Novel safe envelopes will be developed for the vehicle type, which when combined with traditional envelope protection methods, can demonstrate the application within the UPASS toolbox. Finally the extended UPASS toolbox will be tested both in offline desktop and piloted simulations.

Benefits: UPASS applies to three of the NASA Aeronautics Strategic Implementation Plan’s six strategic thrusts: Thrust 1: “Safe, Efficient Growth in Global Operations,” Thrust 5: “Real-time, System-Wide Safety Assurance,” and Thrust 6: “Assured Autonomy for Aviation Transformation.” In addition, UPASS will help NASA achieve its goals of ensuring safe and timely integration of UAM into the NAS and can directly support the objectives of the Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology (RVLT) Program.

The UPASS toolbox is expected to be of interest in the growing eVTOL marketplace, including government and commercial entities at all stages of the process. This allows for design through determining handling qualities issues prior to flight testing, which can give confidence when performing certification and high-risk test activities. This is critical as the growing market continues to develop.