New vertiport sequencing research thwarts fake arrival times with robust coordination

Advanced air mobility (AAM) operations—like air taxis and delivery drones—will require efficient sequencing of vehicles at vertiports, akin to air traffic control but for low-altitude urban airspace. However, a new arXiv paper from researchers Jaehan Im, Filippos Fotiadis, Ufuk Topcu, and David Fridovich-Keil highlights a critical vulnerability: sequencing decisions often rely on self-reported information such as estimated time of arrival (ETA), which can be falsified. Self-interested vehicles may misreport their arrival times to get better landing priority, while malicious actors could disrupt schedules entirely. The problem is compounded by sensing uncertainty—surveillance systems can’t perfectly pinpoint a vehicle’s position, so a falsified report that falls within the uncertainty region cannot be outright rejected.

The paper’s solution reframes vertiport sequencing as a robust design problem. The coordinator combines self-reported Remote-ID data with external surveillance measurements, then applies robust sequencing rules that account for both types of attacks. For self-interested misreporting, the model assumes strategic deviations that benefit the reporting vehicle; for malicious spoofing, it treats the falsification as an adversarial disturbance degrading the system-level objective. The final paper will evaluate these rules in representative vertiport scenarios. This work is a step toward secure, trustworthy coordination layers for the coming wave of urban aerial mobility—ensuring that fairness and safety aren’t undermined by bad actors exploiting uncertainty.