Permissioned Blockchain in Advanced Air Mobility: A Performance Analysis for UTM

TL;DR

This paper benchmarks the real-time performance of blockchain-based UTM architectures, revealing that current blockchain solutions face scalability challenges, and proposes hybrid models for effective future deployment in air traffic management.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative comparison of federated and permissioned blockchain architectures for UTM, highlighting their performance limitations and suggesting hybrid solutions for aeronautical applications.

Findings

InterUSS maintains sub-second latency up to 30 TPS

Hyperledger Fabric shows exponential latency degradation beyond 30 TPS

Hybrid models are recommended for scalable, real-time UTM deployment

Abstract

The integration of Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) into low-altitude airspace has led authorities to adopt distributed Uncrewed Traffic Management (UTM) architectures that ensure interoperability and safety. Blockchain has been proposed as an enabler for trustworthy coordination among UTM stakeholders. Yet, its real-time performance under aeronautical constraints remains insufficiently characterized. This paper presentes a quantitative benchmark comparing two regulation compliant distributed architectures: the federated InterUSS platform maintained by the Linux Foundation and a permissioned blockchain based on Hyperledger Fabric. Both systems were evaluated through Operational Intent Reference (OIR) registration work loads generated via Hyperledger Caliper, measuring throughput, latency, and transaction loss under loads up to 50 transactions per second. Results show that InterUSS sustained sub-second latency and stable performance up to 30 TPS. At the same time, Fabric exhibited exponential degradation with median latency exceeding 3 s and tail latencies above 15 s beyond that point. These findings demonstrate that blockchain-based architectures must be redesigned to meet aeronautical timing and scalability requirements, suggesting that hybrid models combining distributed ledgers for auditability with federated frameworks for real-time coordination are more suitable for future UTM deployments.