Chip-Level Considerations to Enable Dependability for eVTOL and Urban Air Mobility Systems

Weight, energy consumption and performance are critical drivers in future mass-produced eVTOLs (electrically powered Vertical Take-Off and Landing aircraft) worldwide. The quest to rapidly integrate and certify modern COTS compute and communications technology will be a central goal of modern avionics OEMs combining new technologies, such as cloud-center integration and acceleration of AI, create the new functionality necessary for the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) revolution. The cost savings in COTS, to be fully recognized, will require a new perspective on how functionality is partitioned, how power-efficient and safe/secure performance is facilitated by multicore processors (MCP) and how the HW/SW certification processes can be streamlined to allow the industry to easily absorb the latest innovations. In this paper we describe some current and future trends that affect air traffic control systems and UAM avionics. We describe impact on Air Traffic Control (ATC), present new ATC and UAM avionics architectures, technology enablers in general and how UAM can profit from the latest technology advancements.