As Urban Air Mobility (UAM) emerges as a transformative transportation solution, ensuring equitable access and community acceptance becomes paramount for successful integration into urban environments. Current UAM development often overlooks community needs and may exacerbate transportation inequities if not carefully designed. This project addresses the critical gap between advanced autonomous air transportation technology and inclusive urban planning by developing machine learning frameworks that prioritize both safety and social equity in UAM system design.

Our research employs a multi-faceted approach combining deep reinforcement learning policies with hybrid LSTM-Graph Neural Network architectures to enable safe, efficient multi-agent UAV collision avoidance in complex urban airspaces. Using real-world data from Austin, Texas, we are creating robust simulation environments that model realistic UAM operations while developing equitable algorithms for airspace management. The project includes optimization of vertiport placement through Monte Carlo tree search methods and the creation of VertiCAP, an innovative planning tool that integrates community input into UAM infrastructure design decisions.

The research will produce scalable algorithms capable of managing high-density UAM traffic while ensuring equitable access across diverse urban communities. By incorporating community-driven design principles, the project aims to prevent the digital divide from extending into aerial transportation, ensuring that UAM benefits all urban residents rather than creating new forms of transportation inequality. The VertiCAP tool will provide municipalities with data-driven insights for inclusive vertiport placement and operational planning.

This project directly supports NASA ARMD’s Strategic Thrusts by advancing autonomous collision avoidance systems (Thrust 6), enabling safe vertical lift vehicle integration (Thrust 4), developing scalable airspace management for global operations (Thrust 1), and creating real-time safety assurance capabilities (Thrust 5). Our work provides NASA with foundational technologies for next-generation aviation infrastructure while pioneering community-centered approaches essential for sustainable and equitable aviation transformation in urban environments.