Network Working Group                                    F. Templin, Ed.
Internet-Draft                              Boeing Research & Technology
Intended status: Informational                              July 4, 2020
Expires: January 5, 2021


 Urban Air Mobility Implications for Intelligent Transportation Systems
                    draft-templin-ipwave-uam-its-03

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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   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
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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

.  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 coordinations 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.

.  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] are not applicable within the scope of
   this document.

.  Applicability

   Urban Air Mobility and Intelligent Transportation System concepts
   apply within all major urban areas worldwide.

.  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 virtual Non-
   Broadcast Multiple Access (NBMA) connection to the serving ground
   domain infrastructure configured over the underlying data links.

   The OMNI interface and link model provide a nexus for multilink,
   multihop and mobility coordination using standard IPv6 Neighbor
   Discovery (ND) messaging [RFC4861] according to the NBMA principle.
   The OMNI model therefore supports efficient UAM internetworking




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   services with no need for adjunct mobility messaging, nor
   modifications to the IPv6 ND messaging services or link model.

.  Implementation Status

   Early prototyping and testing are underway.

.  IANA Considerations

   This document introduces no IANA considerations.

.  Security Considerations

   Communications networking security is necessary to preserve the
   confidentiality, integrity and availability necessary for V2V and V2I
   coordinations.

.  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.

.  References

9.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.templin-6man-omni-interface]
              Templin, F. and T. Whyman, "Transmission of IPv6 Packets
              over Overlay Multilink Network (OMNI) Interfaces", draft-
              templin-6man-omni-interface-27 (work in progress), July
              2020.

   [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>.

   [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

   Fred L. Templin (editor)
   Boeing Research & Technology
   P.O. Box 3707
   Seattle, WA  98124
   USA

   Email: fltemplin@acm.org




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