LIFE CYCLE COST OPTIMIZATION FOR E-VTOL CHARGING AND SUPPORT INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING IN ON-DEMAND URBAN AIR MOBILITY¶
Abstract¶
Seeking to minimize traffic congestion in cities, the aeronautical industry has recently intensified the exploration of Urban Air Mobility (UAM), focusing its efforts on developing electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (e-VTOL) configurations and their supporting systems. The urban on-demand e-VTOL scenario requires a large dispersion of support infrastructure points and high operational dynamism. The current energy density of e-VTOL electric batteries makes their range limited, and electrical energy supply must be performed through charging or swapping stations during operation. There is a gap concerning modeling for urban e-VTOL to allow the operator, from the perspective of life cycle cost and fleet availability, to plan a cost-efficient allocation of its fleet support and energy supply infrastructure. This work addresses the development of a Life Cycle Cost (LCC) optimization model based on UAM e-VTOL support and energy supply infrastructure planning and allocation. The model was divided into two main steps: the energy supply infrastructure allocation; and the support, logistics, and spare parts supply network allocation. For the former, a Genetic Algorithm was applied to find optimal locations for energy supply infrastructure, minimizing LCC. We conduct the optimization of the spare parts for the latter in Systecon OPUS10. We implemented an e-VTOL as an air taxi operation in the city of São Paulo case study to verify the effectiveness of the model. As a result of the work, it was obtained the case study’s LCC and the location and number of energy stations within the e-VTOL support infrastructure network for both battery-swapping and plug-in charging systems. The methodology and algorithms used proved efficient for planning the support and energy supply infrastructure for urban on-demand e-VTOL, given systems specifications and the operational profile. In addition, it was possible to compare both energy supply concepts in terms of LCC.
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Citing¶
@inproceedings{SIT194,
author = {CAIO GONÇALVES NATALINO; HENRIQUE COSTA MARQUES; JOÃO PEDRO PINHEIRO MALÈRE},
title = {LIFE CYCLE COST OPTIMIZATION FOR E-VTOL CHARGING AND SUPPORT INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING IN ON-DEMAND URBAN AIR MOBILITY},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2022 Air Transportation Symposium},
series = {SITRAER 2022},
year = {2022},
pages = {465-475},
publisher = {SBTA - Brazilian Air Transportation Research Society},
address = {São José dos Campos, Brazil,}
}
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