Network Working Group F. Templin, Ed.
Internet-Draft Boeing Research & Technology
Intended status: Informational January 4, 2021
Expires: July 8, 2021
Urban Air Mobility Implications for Intelligent Transportation Systems
draft-templin-ipwave-uam-its-04
Abstract
Urban Air Mobility concerns the introduction of manned and unmanned
aircraft within urban environments, while Intelligent Transportation
Systems have traditionally considered only terrestrial vehicles
operating on city streets and highways. This document considers the
implications for introduction of low-altitude aircraft within urban
environments operating in harmony with ground transportation.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Applicability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. The Overlay Multilink Network (OMNI) Interface . . . . . . . 3
5. Implementation Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Appendix A. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1. Introduction
Urban Air Mobility (UAM) concerns the introduction of manned and
unmanned aircraft within urban environments. Autonomy will play a
pivotal role in the acceptance of low-altitude operations for aerial
vehicles operating in harmony with traditional ground transportation
and pedestrian traffic. The UAM vision therefore builds on evolving
works on Unmanned Air Systems (UAS), including the NASA UAS Traffic
Management (UTM) service model [UTM].
Use cases for autonomous aircraft in the UAM vision are endless, and
include personal air vehicles, flying taxis, parcel delivery, law
enforcement and countless others. Major industry leaders such as
Airbus [AIRBUS] and Boeing [BOEING] have accordingly begun to
articulate their UAM strategies. Programs such as Uber Elevate
[UBER] anticipate deployment as early as within the next 2-5 years.
With the advent of the UAM vision and its related initiatives,
questions arise as to how the new model will be harmonized with the
existing terrestrial mobility environment. Directions for
modernizing terrestrial mobility are emerging in programs such as the
US Department of Transportation's Intelligent Transportation Systems
[ITS] and anticipate an increasing role for Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V)
and Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) communications. The IETF
recognizes this need and has formed the IP Wireless Access in
Vehicular Environments (IPWAVE) working group with charter to produce
a document that will specify the mechanisms for transmission of IPv6
datagrams [RFC8200] over dedicated short-range wireless
communications media.
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This document anticipates a need to provide a unified V2V and V2I
service for all urban mobility agents, including both terrestrial and
airborne. Urban air vehicles will employ Vertical Takeoff And
Landing (VTOL) and will operate at altitudes below 400 feet, such
that communications range overlap with terrestrial vehicles will be
inevitable and commonplace. This work therefore proposes that urban
air vehicles also employ a short-range V2V / V2I communications
capability using the same types of wireless networking gear used in
the terrestrial domain (e.g., DSRC, C-V2X, etc.).
The urban mobility landscape is evolving from a two dimensional to a
three dimensional environment. Vehicles both on the ground and in
the air will therefore need to coordinate with one another on a V2V
and V2I basis even when supporting communications infrastructure such
as cell towers are unavailable or otherwise too congested to support
realtime exchanges. The ipwave working group is therefore advised to
consider the rapidly emerging and inevitable Urban Air Mobility
future.
2. Terminology
Terms such as Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), Urban Air
Mobility (UAM), Unmanned Air Systems (UAS), UAS Traffic Management
(UTM) and many others apply to the emerging urban mobility landscape.
IETF keywords per [RFC2119][RFC8174] are not applicable within the
scope of this document.
3. Applicability
Urban Air Mobility and Intelligent Transportation System concepts
apply within all major urban areas worldwide.
4. The Overlay Multilink Network (OMNI) Interface
UAM end systems will often have multiple diverse wireless
transmission media interfaces (including cellular, SATCOM, short-
range omni-directional, etc.) offered by different data link service
providers. In order to provide mobility, multihop and multilink
services, UAM end systems can employ an Overlay Multilink Network
(OMNI) interface [I-D.templin-6man-omni-interface] as a Non-Broadcast
Multiple Access (NBMA) virtual link connection for V2V/V2I
communications over the underlying data links.
The OMNI interface and link model provide a nexus for multilink,
multihop, multicast and mobility coordination using standard IPv6
Neighbor Discovery (ND) messaging [RFC4861] according to the NBMA
principle. The OMNI model therefore supports efficient UAM
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internetworking services with no need for adjunct mobility messaging,
nor modifications to the IPv6 ND messaging services or link model.
5. Implementation Status
Early prototyping and testing are underway.
6. IANA Considerations
This document introduces no IANA considerations.
7. Security Considerations
Communications networking security is necessary to preserve the
confidentiality, integrity and availability necessary for V2V and V2I
coordinations.
8. Acknowledgements
Discussions on the IETF ipwave list (its@ietf.org) helped motivate
this document.
This work is aligned with the NASA Safe Autonomous Systems Operation
(SASO) program under NASA contract number NNA16BD84C.
This work is aligned with the FAA as per the SE2025 contract number
DTFAWA-15-D-00030.
This work is aligned with the Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA)
Internet of Things (IoT) and autonomy programs.
This work is aligned with the Boeing Information Technology (BIT)
MobileNet program.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[I-D.templin-6man-omni-interface]
Templin, F. and T. Whyman, "Transmission of IP Packets
over Overlay Multilink Network (OMNI) Interfaces", draft-
templin-6man-omni-interface-68 (work in progress), January
2021.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
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[RFC4861] Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and H. Soliman,
"Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 4861,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4861, September 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4861>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
[RFC8200] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
(IPv6) Specification", STD 86, RFC 8200,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8200, July 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8200>.
9.2. Informative References
[AIRBUS] "https://www.airbus.com/innovation/Urban-air-mobility-the-
sky-is-yours.html", November 2018.
[BOEING] "http://www.boeing.com/NeXt/common/docs/
Boeing_Future_of_Mobility_White%20Paper.pdf", March 2019.
[ITS] "https://www.its.dot.gov/", November 2018.
[UBER] "https://www.uber.com/us/en/elevate/", November 2018.
[UTM] "https://utm.arc.nasa.gov/index.shtml", March 2019.
Appendix A. Change Log
<< RFC Editor - remove prior to publication >>
Changes from -01 to -02:
o Included OMNI interface
o Version and reference update
Changes from -00 to -01:
o Version and reference update
Author's Address
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Fred L. Templin (editor)
Boeing Research & Technology
P.O. Box 3707
Seattle, WA 98124
USA
Email: fltemplin@acm.org
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