ALBERT

Description: We are discussing needs of current and future airspace users and identifying implications for architecture and services.

Description: Coordination of operations with spatially and temporally shared resources, such as route segments, fixes, and runways, improves the efficiency of terminal airspace management. Problems in this category are, in general, computationally difficult compared to conventional scheduling problems. This paper presents a fast time algorithm formulation using a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA). It was first applied to a test problem introduced in existing literature. An experiment with a test problem showed that new methods can solve the 20 aircraft problem in fast time with a 65% or 440 second delay reduction using shared departure fixes. In order to test its application in a more realistic and complicated problem, the NSGA algorithm was applied to a problem in LAX terminal airspace, where interactions between 28% of LAX arrivals and 10% of LAX departures are resolved by spatial separation in current operations, which may introduce unnecessary delays. In this work, three types of separations - spatial, temporal, and hybrid separations - were formulated using the new algorithm. The hybrid separation combines both temporal and spatial separations. Results showed that although temporal separation achieved less delay than spatial separation with a small uncertainty buffer, spatial separation outperformed temporal separation when the uncertainty buffer was increased. Hybrid separation introduced much less delay than both spatial and temporal approaches. For a total of 15 interacting departures and arrivals, when compared to spatial separation, the delay reduction of hybrid separation varied between 11% or 3.1 minutes and 64% or 10.7 minutes corresponding to an uncertainty buffer from 0 to 60 seconds. Furthermore, as a comparison with the NSGA algorithm, a First-Come-First-Serve based heuristic method was implemented for the hybrid separation. Experiments showed that the results from the NSGA algorithm have 9% to 42% less delay than the heuristic method with varied uncertainty buffer sizes.

Description: Coordination of operations with spatially and temporally shared resources such as route segments, fixes, and runways improves the efficiency of terminal airspace management. Problems in this category include scheduling and routing, thus they are normally difficult to solve compared with pure scheduling problems. In order to reduce the computational time, a fast time algorithm formulation using a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA) was introduced in this work and applied to a test case based on existing literature. The experiment showed that new method can solve the whole problem in fast time instead of solving sub-problems sequentially with a window technique. The results showed a 60% or 406 second delay reduction was achieved by sharing departure fixes (more details on the comparison with MILP results will be presented in the final paper). Furthermore, the NSGA algorithm was applied to a problem in LAX terminal airspace, where interactions between 28% of LAX arrivals and 10% of LAX departures are resolved by spatial segregation, which may introduce unnecessary delays. In this work, spatial segregation, temporal segregation, and hybrid segregation were formulated using the new algorithm. Results showed that spatial and temporal segregation approaches achieved similar delay. Hybrid segregation introduced much less delay than the other two approaches. For a total of 9 interacting departures and arrivals, delay reduction varied from 4 minutes to 6.4 minutes corresponding flight time uncertainty from 0 to 60 seconds. Considering the amount of flights that could be affected, total annual savings with hybrid segregation would be significant.

Description: The corridors-in-the-sky concept imitates the highway system in ground transportation. The benefit expected from a corridor relies on its capability of handling high density traffic with negligible controller workload, the acceptance of extra fuel or distance, and the complexity reduction in underlying sectors. This work evaluates a selected corridor from these perspectives through simulations. To examine traffic inside the corridor, a corridor traffic simulation tool that can resolve conflicts is developed using C language. Prescribed conflict resolution maneuvers mimic corridor users behaviors and conflict resolution counts measure complexity. Different lane options and operational policies are proposed to examine their impacts on complexity. Fuel consumption is calculated and compared for corridor traffic. On the other hand, to investigate the complexity of non-corridor traffic in underlying sectors, the existing Airspace Concept Evaluation System tool is utilized along with the Automated Airspace Concept tool. The number of conflict resolutions is examined and treated as the complexity measurement. The results show heavy traffic can be managed with low complexity for a historical traffic schedule simulated with appropriate operational policies and lane options. For instance, with 608 flights and peak aircraft count of 100, only 84 actions need to be taken in a 24-hour period to resolve the conflicts for an 8-lane corridor. Compared with the fuel consumptions with great circle trajectories, the simulation of corridor traffic shows that the total extra fuel for corridor flights is 26,373 gallons, or 2.76%, which is 0.38% less than flying filed flight plans. Without taking climb and descent portions of corridor traffic, the complexity of underlying sectors is reduced by 17.71%. However the climb and descent portions will eliminate the reduction and the overall complexity of sectors is actually increased by 9.14%.