Generic Urban Air Mobility (GUAM) Simulation

About this technology

Overview

The generic Urban Air Mobility (GUAM) is a NASA created Matlab/Simulink simulation whose focus is to provide access for the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) research community to a complete six degree-of-freedom, non-linear, single rigid-body simulation architecture to facilitate perception, control and machine learning research focused on novel aircraft configurations. This architecture is modular (e.g., readily accepts new vehicles, sensor models, perception models, mission-managers, controllers etc..), yet uses a bus structure that will enable research groups to drop-in research algorithms/controllers within an existing framework and data bus structure. This initial software release includes an initial UAM vehicle model (the NASA Advanced Air Vehicle program concept vehicle Lift+Cruise), two aero-propulsive models, a unified controller, basic contingency management capability, and various other simulation needs (e.g., simple effector models). The two choices of aero-propulsive models are user selectable and consist of: a medium fidelity strip theory s-function model, and a blended polynomial based model. Both models are currently configured for the Lift+Cruise vehicle. The medium fidelity strip theory model is readily customizable by the user to create a model of any arbitrary eVTOL configuration (tilt wing, tilt rotors, arbitrary number of propellers/rotors, designate airfoil, aerodynamic effectors). The existing polynomial model is a blended data fit model generated from the strip theory s-function model but should be readily adaptable for other polynomial models. It is intended that the GUAM simulation will be updated periodically with multiple follow-on releases with new capabilities (e.g., new vehicle models, multi-body dynamics modeling, etc..). The stated goal for the release of this simulation framework is to facilitate collaboration and exchange within the eVTOL and UAM research communities.