Investigation of Support Algorithm for Air Traffic Controllers’ Arrival Separation Management

Abstract

A flying aircraft generates wake turbulence behind it from its wingtips. The stability of an aircraft will be affected if it encounters wake turbulence. Successive arrival aircraft at a runway have to maintain appropriate longitudinal separation between the leader and follower aircraft to avoid the effects of wake turbulence. The wake turbulence separation minima are applied via an air traffic controller’s instructions. Separation management imposes a high workload on air traffic controllers. To mitigate the workload for air traffic controllers, this study proposes a support algorithm for arrival separation management. The support algorithm provides an indicator for each aircraft. The indicator is calculated to maintain the arrival separation that matches the separation minima; hence, the arrival aircraft can maintain appropriate arrival separation if the air traffic controller adjusts the aircraft position to match the indicator. To review the capabilities of the support algorithm, a case study is conducted using actual flight data derived from radar data. The results show that the support algorithm can calculate the appropriate indicator near the runway threshold, but the indicator has errors in the initial phase of the arrival separation management. Finally, the paper discusses the error sources and the future directions for improving the support algorithm.