Low-Altitude Wind Hazard Alerting and Rerouting Service

ATAC and NCAR propose to develop a Low Altitude Wind Hazard Alerting and Rerouting (LAWHAR) service for UAM operations. LAWHAR addresses Subtopic A3.04rsquo;s need for dynamic route planning that considers changing environmental conditions and vehicle performance. NCARrsquo;s recent NASA-sponsored study has shown that existing weather observing infrastructure and operational weather guidance have significant gaps at the micro scale, relevant to operating UAM vehicles in the urban airspace. These gaps are in stark contrast with NASA and UAM industry vision of weather-resistant UAM operations. LAWHAR paves the path for achieving this vision by advancing the state-of-the-art in multiple relevant areas: (1) LAWHAR leverages NCARrsquo;s Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model for predicting low-altitude wind speeds, wind shear and turbulence associated with wind-flows across urban canopies, and applies a novel approach to predict temporally and spatially-varying wind hazard regions. This novel approach combines wind prediction data transformation (e.g., clustering) with subject matter expert reviews to predict wind hazard regions. (2) LAWHAR develops an alerting and rerouting algorithm, which considers variability in vehicle performance as regards to vulnerability to wind effects, to provide aircraft-type-sensitive wind hazard alerts and hazard-free reroutes. (3) LAWHAR leverages LES models to find optimum placement for wind sensors in an urban wind sensor network to provide high-quality guidance on wind hazards. (4) The Phase I SBIR provides a proof-of-concept demonstration on a downtown, Dallas, TX, scenario for which we already have significant amount of LES model data. LAWHAR supports the objectives of NASArsquo;s ATM-X project and also supports NASArsquo;s AAM National Campaign by providing guidance on urban wind sensor network design and a prototype wind hazard alerting and rerouting capability for integrated testing along with other NASA and industry UAM traffic management tools.