Enabling Reliable and Scalable Urban Air Mobility Communications Through 6G Network Slicing

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is emerging as a cornerstone of next-generation transportation, relying on seamless, reliable, and high-throughput wireless connectivity for both safety-critical and passenger-oriented services. To address these challenges, this paper investigates the feasibility of enabling UAM communications through future 6 G Terrestrial Network (TN) leveraging network slicing. Dedicated slices are envisioned for safety-critical Command and Control (C2) communications, onboard passenger services, and terrestrial users, each with tailored resource allocation and quality-of-service guarantees. A comprehensive performance analysis is carried out to assess the coexistence of aerial and ground links under diverse traffic loads, user densities, and transmission conditions, demonstrating the capacity of 6 G networks to sustain C 2 communications while balancing resource efficiency for non-C2 and terrestrial services. These findings provide valuable insights for the design of scalable, slice-aware 6 G architectures capable of supporting the coexistence of aerial and terrestrial communications in future UAM ecosystems.