Regulating arrival UAV flows between the AirMatrix and the droneport using a dynamic carousel circuit

There is a growing need of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs, or drones) in commercial, civil, and military applications. Tens of millions of annual flights are expected to fly in the airspace by 2050. To solve the potential safety issue and airspace congestion issue brought by the rise of drone operations, a dynamic carousel circuit is conceived and integrated with droneport operations. This study introduces the concept of the dynamic carousel circuit with a changing radius that can accommodate the growing demand of future drones, and develops a simulation model as well as an optimization algorithm to determine the optimum circuit radius, the moving speed of drones on the circuit, and the circuit altitude with forecasted drone demand. We strive to apply more realistic simulation with the residual endurance estimation model and the cubic trajectory planning model. The former model uses a practically applicable method to calculate the drone’s endurance with the remaining battery level as input. The latter model generates a smooth landing trajectory and thus estimates the travel time of drones more accurately. Numerical tests were conducted to analyze the performance of the dynamic carousel circuit. The findings from this study show that the dynamic carousel circuit has the potential to increase droneport capacity, improve aviation safety, and enhance droneport operational efficiency.