Can airborne self separation safely accommodate very high en-route traffic demand?

Abstract

Fifteen years after the “invention” of free flight an outstanding question still is: Can airborne self separation safely accommodate very high traffic demand? The aim of this paper is to answer this question for en-route airspace. Therefore an advanced airborne self separation concept of operation is evaluated on safety risk at very high traffic demands. The advanced airborne self separation concept of operations (ConOps) considered is of Trajectory Based Operation (TBO) type, in the sense that each aircraft manages a conflict free 4D trajecory intent and broadcasts this to the other aircraft. Complementary to this TBO layer, each aircraft makes use of a short term state based conflict detection and resolution layer which aims to resolve any remaining problems, such as significant deviations from 4D intents due to wind prediction errors. Safety risk analysis is conducted using advanced techniques in agent based modelling and rare event Monte Carlo simulation. The results obtained show that the airborne self separation concept of operations considered has a remarkably good collaboration between the TBO and the tactical resolution layers, as a result of which it can safely accommodate very high en-route traffic demands.