Virtual Marketplace for Urban Air Mobility

We build a software system that executes a virtual marketplace for urban air mobility (UAM). The virtual marketplace will serve the traveling public with an on-demand system that connects multi-modal modes of transportation in a competitive marketplace environment utilizing forward auctions and reverse auctions to provide cost effective transportation of people and goods. The virtual marketplace will shape the UAM demand datasets (location of all takeoff points in the urban environment), and in the long term, will force competitive market forces to make UAM a viable cost competitive system of transportation.

The research software and algorithms produced in this effort can be applied to cost benefits studies to show the viability of the UAM concept of operations. The software can be adapted by NASA to investigate UAM at different urban environments for different cities in the United States. The software can also be used in Human in the Loop (HITL) experiments at NASA.

Uber Elevate, Google, and other corporations interested at setting up Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) vehicles that fly UAM missions in urban environments will potentially use our software to assist in the management of those VTOL flights. These companies will first be interested in our software tied to simulations to determine cost effective strategies for UAM.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 2) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.