Thank you to Hamsa Balakrishnan, William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who presented The Promise and the Challenge of Advanced Air Mobility at the ITS Berkeley Transportation Seminar Friday Feb. 9, 2024.
Abstract: Advanced Air Mobility (AAM)—characterized by electric or hybrid aircraft, and highly-automated operations—has the potential to dramatically transform the way in which we transport people and goods, as well as our ability to sense our world from the sky. The excitement around these vehicles and the services they could enable has led to the investment of billions of dollars in their development. However, the deployment of such new aircraft and fleet operators will increase competition for limited airspace resources. Furthermore, in contrast to conventional air traffic management by Air Navigation Service Providers like the FAA, AAM operations are expected to be managed by third-party service providers. In this talk, I will discuss some of the key traffic management challenges to realizing the promise of AAM, and our approaches to overcoming them.
Bio: Hamsa Balakrishnan is the William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She received her PhD from Stanford University and a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. Her research is in the design, analysis, and implementation of control and optimization algorithms for cyber-physical infrastructures, with an emphasis on air transportation. Prof. Balakrishnan is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award (2008), the CNA Award for Operational Analysis (2012), the AIAA Lawrence Sperry Award (2012), the American Automatic Control Council’s Donald P. Eckman Award (2014), the MIT AIAA Undergrad Advising (2014) and Undergraduate Teaching (2019) Awards, the MIT Office of Graduate Education Committed to Caring Honor (2023), and several best paper awards including the Kevin Corker Award for Best Paper at the USA/Europe Air Traffic Management R&D Seminar (2011, 2021 and 2023).