Comparing Text and Voice Communications in Simulated Urban Air Mobility Operations

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is being developed as a concept for moving passengers and cargo within urban areas. Although many concepts of operation for integrating UAM traffic within the existing airspace system have been proposed, one has not been selected for implementation. Yet, it is increasingly important to understand these operational concepts given recent near misses in terminal airspace between conventional aircraft and rotorcraft, which operate in a similar manner to some UAM vehicles. This study examines how text versus voice communications with air traffic control impacts pilot performance and perceived workload and situation awareness in simulated UAM operations. We found that the text-based communication mode led to more lateral deviations from the optimal flight path compared to voice. Moreover, pilots perceived similar workload and situational awareness in text- and voice-based communication conditions. However, during text-based conditions, pilots expressed safety concerns regarding loss of situation awareness due to head-down time spent reading ATC messages. Together, these findings suggest the feasibility of using text-based communications. However, more research is needed on the design of such systems as well as the protocols for communication.