Effects Of Microscale Wind Disturbance On Evtol Aircraft Performance During Landing

Abstract

The primary conception of Urban Air Mobility is to transport people and goods within cities by operating electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing aircraft at low altitudes where microscale wind conditions are pervasive. These wind disturbances within the urban canopy pose several challenges to near-ground flight phases and one such risk is the possibility of landing trajectory deviation. This paper investigates the effects of wind on an eVTOL landing performance and its corresponding trajectory by integrating microscale wind velocity field data into a flight simulator. Initially, a reference trajectory is generated to depict a scenario of an eVTOL landing on the ground, at the leeward side of a building, for no wind conditions. Then, the microscale wind data representing the flow over an isolated building are synthesized and introduced into the flight simulator to update the landing trajectory in the presence of wind disturbance for assessing the wind-induced aircraft performance deviations.