3.5 Enabling new forms of mobility and uses of the sky

As described in Section 3.1, the aim is to enable the market uptake of innovative air mobility (1) solutions covering new forms of air mobility, initially through crewed vertical take-off and landing (VTOL)-capable aircraft (VCA) operations.

Aligned with the European Commission’s drone strategy 2.0 (2), U-space 2.0 (see Figure 6) refers to the next evolution of U-space to fully integrate drone and ATM operations to support the scaling up of IAM and services. U-space 2.0 enables increased uncrewed aircraft traffic and is a move towards the integration of crewed and uncrewed aircraft into the same airspace. Other airspace users, such as general aviation (GA) and rotorcraft, will obtain operational and safety benefits thanks to interoperability and seamless information sharing between all airspace users.

U-space foundation services (U1) and initial services (U2) are already being rolled out. Meanwhile, advanced services (U3) and full services (U4) require further development activities to secure an increased degree of integration between ATM and U-space services.

Figure 6: U-space 2.0 in the context of the overall ATM evolution

See Section A.4 for the U-space 2.0 roadmap.

(1)          According to the European drone strategy 2.0, the concept of IAM includes operations with novel aircraft designs (aircraft that do not automatically fall under one of the known categories, but that have vertical take-off and landing capabilities, have specific (distributed) propulsion features, can be operated in an uncrewed configuration, etc.) that are conceived to offer a new type of air mobility for people and cargo, in particular in congested (urban) areas, based on integrated air- and ground-based infrastructure.

(2)          European Commission, Commission communication – A drone strategy 2.0 for a smart and sustainable unmanned aircraft eco-system in Europe (COM(2022) 652 final).