Passenger Acceptance of UAM Heave Acceleration in a Virtual Reality Motion-Base Simulator

For Urban Air Mobility taxis, passengers will experience different levels of heave motion during flight. Researchers at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center conducted two studies in which passengers were exposed to varying levels of heave motion in the Armstrong Virtual Reality Passenger Ride Quality Laboratory. In the first study, twenty-three volunteers from the Armstrong workforce evaluated the motions on a five-point rating scale and a binary comfort scale; in the second study, fifty volunteers evaluated a flight experience with varying levels of stimuli using a five-point comfort scale and a five-point passenger acceptance scale. This paper combines the results of these two studies to observe the relationship between heave motion and passenger rider quality and acceptance. Both passenger comfort and acceptance were found to decrease with increasing heave acceleration The statistically significant relationship between the magnitude of heave acceleration and passenger comfort for individual studies and combined results are discussed.