NASA Demonstrates Safer Skies for Future Urban Air Travel 

NASA is helping shape the future of urban air transportation with a new simulation that will address how air taxis and electric drones can operate successfully in busy areas.

The demonstration, held at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley earlier this year, focused on a system called Strategic Deconfliction Simulation, which helps coordinate flight plans before takeoff, reducing the risk of conflicts in busy urban environments.

At the event, researchers demonstrated NASA’s Situational Viewer and Demand-Capacity Balancing Monitor, which visualize air traffic and adjust flight plans in real time. The simulation demonstrated traffic scenarios involving drone operations throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth region, testing how pre-planned flights could improve congestion and manage airspace demand and capacity – ensuring all aircraft can operate smoothly, even in crowded conditions.

Collaboration with industry partners is essential to NASA’s efforts to develop and refine the technologies needed for future air mobility. During the simulation, ANRA Technologies demonstrated its fleet management and vertiport systems, designed to support the coordination of multiple aircraft and ground operations.

“Simulating these complex environments supports broader efforts to ensure safe integration of drones and other advanced vehicles into U.S. airspace,” said Hanbong Lee, an engineer at NASA Ames. “By showcasing these capabilities, we are providing critical data and lessons learned to support NASA and industry efforts.”

This demonstration is another step toward the NASA team’s plan to hold a simulation of the technical capability level in 2026. This upcoming simulation would help shape the development of services aimed at managing aircraft flying in urban areas.

The simulation was created by a NASA team as part of its Air Mobility Pathfinders project, part of the agency’s ongoing work to find solutions to safely integrate innovative new aircraft such as air taxis into U.S. cities and the national airspace. By developing advanced assessments and simulations, the project supports safe, scalable, public-trust air transportation in urban areas, paving the way for a future where air taxis and drones will be an integral part of daily life.

The project is part of NASA’s Airspace Operations and Security program, which aims to enable safe and efficient air transportation.