The trend for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is growing with prospective air taxis, parcel deliverers, and medical and industrial services. Safe and efficient UAM operation relies on timely communication and reliable data exchange. In this paper, we explore Cooperative Perception (CP) for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), considering the unique communication needs involving high dynamics and a large number of UAS. We propose a hybrid approach combining local broadcast with a central CP service, inspired by centrally managed U-space and broadcast mechanisms from automotive and aviation domains. In a simulation study, we show that our approach significantly enhances the environmental awareness for UAS compared to fully distributed approaches, with an increased communication channel load, which we also evaluate. These findings prompt a discussion on communication strategies for CP in UAM and the potential of a centralized CP service in future research.

翻译：城市空中交通（UAM）正随着空中出租车、包裹投递、医疗及工业服务等应用场景的涌现而迅速发展。安全高效的UAM运行依赖于及时的通信与可靠的数据交换。本文针对无人航空系统（UAS）的特殊通信需求（包括高动态性及大规模部署）探讨协同感知（Cooperative Perception, CP）技术。受中心化管理的U空间概念以及汽车和航空领域广播机制的启发，我们提出一种融合局部广播与中心化CP服务的混合方案。仿真研究表明，与完全分布式方法相比，本方案能显著提升UAS的环境感知能力，但同时也会增加通信信道负载——对此我们亦进行了评估。这些发现引发了对UAM中CP通信策略及未来中心化CP服务潜力的深入讨论。