Flight Trajectory Planning with Safe Landing Assurance under Contingent Event

Numerous companies are developing aircraft and operational concepts for introducing aerial transportation services to urban areas. However, one key potential operational limit is the safety levels required, especially as these areas are densely populated. Operators must strive to achieve acceptable safety levels especially in contingency situations for these Urban Air Mobility operations. Thus, methods to safely resolve a contingency event are an important pursuit. This study introduces the Contingency Landing Assurance Percentage (CLAP), an analog to the Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards in commercial aviation, to quantify safety levels of flight trajectories. Furthermore, this study introduces a 100% CLAP constraint in a trajectory planning algorithm. Two example applications in the Chicago metropolitan area are demonstrated, illustrating the assurance of a reachable landing site for flights with minimum energy consumption.