Understanding the implications of the future unmanned air traffic growth

In the next years, the unmanned air business is expected to have an average annual growth rate of 14.5 per cent. Last-mile delivery, inspection works and security tasks are the most expected missions that those unmanned aircraft (UA) will execute. Most of these missions are well suited for multi-copters: small airframes with vertical take-off and landing capabilities. Large fleets of UA will be managed by new aerial logistic centers where flight plans will be created and monitored, the payload will be prepared, and fast battery replacement will allow continuous flights to obtain maximum benefit. Beyond visual line-of-sight capabilities is a must for those logistic center businesses. Anticipating the scalability of unmanned aircraft growth is the aim of this paper. For this, a simulation tool has been developed which generates unmanned traffic flights from completely parameterized inputs: the geographic area and the type and number of operations, aircraft and operators. For this paper, the tested scenario is a logistics industrial polygon with increasing delivery traffic, the Martorell industrial area (5.8 km(2)). Flights have a random altitude from 80 m to 120 m. Enroute phases have some slight turns to make them more realistic. The time of departure follows a Box-Muller algorithm during the declared business hours, centered in the peak declared hour.