Automated sequencing and merging with dynamic aircraft arrival routes and speed management for continuous descent operations

Raúl Sáez,Tatiana Polishchuk,Christiane Schmidt,Henrik Hardell,Lucie Smetanová,Valentin Polishchuk,Xavier Prats

doi:10.1016/j.trc.2021.103402

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel methodology to manage arrival traffic in terminal airspace. We define two areas around the airport, aiming to efficiently schedule incoming traffic. A four-dimensional (4D) trajectory negotiation/synchronization process between the air traffic control officer (ATCO) and the aircraft is performed in the pre-sequencing area, while the aircraft are still in the en-route phase of flight. On the other hand, in the dynamic-trajectories area, the ATCO, with the help of a ground support tool, generates dynamic arrival routes that automatically adapt to the current traffic demand. These arrival routes allow the aircraft to fly neutral continuous descent operations (CDOs, descents with idle thrust and no speed-brakes usage) and to ensure a separation throughout the arrival procedure. We choose a mixed-integer-programming approach to generate the arrival routes, while we formulate and solve an optimal control problem to generate a set of candidate CDOs per aircraft. Results show that, with a sufficient look-ahead time, it is possible to assign a required time of arrival (RTA) within each aircraft-arrival time window that would allow to efficiently schedule traffic even in the most challenging and dense scenarios. Besides improving efficiency of current operations in terminal airspace, the methodology presented in this paper could become a technical enabler towards an extended arrival manager (E-AMAN) with extended capabilities and, ultimately, to a fully deployed trajectory based operations (TBO) environment.

Highlights

Air transportation has been experiencing a continuous growth over the last decades and, the 2020 setback might slow down this upward trend (Iacus et al, 2020), high levels of air traffic are still projected for the future
We extend the capabilities of extended arrival manager (E-AMAN) by introducing an additional region surrounding the airport, which would be similar to the current terminal maneuvering areas (TMAs)—where arrival routes are static—but with additional functions and a variable size
We evaluate the benefits provided by this approach using a set of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) recently proposed by Eurocontrol Experimental Centre in Christien et al (2019), with several adjustments to the proposed methodology, which are detailed in Smetanová (2020):

Summary

Introduction

Air transportation has been experiencing a continuous growth over the last decades and, the 2020 setback might slow down this upward trend (Iacus et al, 2020), high levels of air traffic are still projected for the future. Despite the desirable growth of the global economy, the higher volume of traffic has increased the environmental impact of aviation and the workload faced by air traffic control officers (ATCOs). This is especially evident in terminal maneuvering areas (TMAs), which are areas of controlled traffic surrounding one or more aerodromes. In large airports, TMAs are very congested and experience large levels of noise and emissions produced by aircraft This leads to the need for research into methods for achieving a greener air transportation and for lessening the ATCO workload, while allowing for an increase in capacity. In general, better—probably optimal—results will be obtained with MIP, but at the expense of higher computational times

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion