Effect of Congestion Mitigation Strategy on UAS Traffic Flow in Dense Urban Airspace
Sajid Ahamed Mohammed Abdul, Debasish Ghose, Prathyush P. Menon · 2025
This paper presents a study to evaluate the effect of congestion mitigation strategy on Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) traffic in the context of UAS Traffic Management (UTM) for last-mile delivery applications. In last-mile delivery, the airspace is a confined volume dense in static obstacles and has vertiports where some payload needs to be delivered frequently. UASs carrying payload enter the airspace sequentially through an entry point, traverse the airspace to deliver payload at the vertiport, and then leave the airspace via an exit point. The UAS are free to move in the obstacle-free airspace. As several UAS share the airspace, they are bound to encounter congestion. A model of a congestion mitigation strategy is presented, using which the UAS can avoid the congested region by re-routing onto alternate paths. A study is carried out to demonstrate the effect of the congestion mitigation strategy – in terms of congestion-causing parameters such as the UAS arrival rate at the entry point and distance of entry and exit from the vertiport – on the spread of UAS traffic in the airspace and delays incurred.