6G-NTN

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) has been defined by EASA (European Union Aviation Safety Agency) as “a new safe, secure and more sustainable air transportation system for passengers and cargo in urban environments”. Providing connectivity services for the so-called C2-Link (C2 for Command and Control) is critical for drone operations in general and for BVLoS missions in particular. A 6G-NTN architecture shall thus provide specific services to be recognised as C2CSP (C2 Link communication service provider) and be used for UAV communications. The three scenarios are proposed: 1) On-demand creation of aerial corridors for last-mile delivery (pre-flight service), 2) Anti-collision and autonomous deconfliction (in-flight service) and 3) Emergency situation management (in-flight service). The most critical enabler for this UC is the high interoperability of network service exposure and coverage information exchange between the different layers of the TN / NTN architecture towards unified UAV traffic management.