Strategies for Applying Variable Lookahead Times to Conflict Detection and Trial Planning

Abstract

The optimal to initiate a conflict resolution maneuver has been cited as a tradeoff between trajectory efficiency and conflict detection/resolution certainty. One of the goals of this research is to add a new dimension to the tradeoff by considering controller workload as well. Maintaining acceptable levels of controller workload is often achieved through traffic flow management (TFM) restrictions, which cause not just the inefficiency of a single trajectory, but the trajectory inefficiency of entire traffic flows. It is hypothesized that by developing strategies that consider variable (rather than static) lookahead times for conflict detection and trial planning, controller productivity can be increased, which would result in increased sector capacities and reduce the need for TFM restrictions. When sector loading is high, the strategy should emphasize increased controller productivity. When sector loading is low to moderate, the focus can shift to strategies that emphasize single trajectory efficiency. The term effective trial planning lookahead time is introduced and determines the ability to capture secondary conflicts (conflicts that occur downstream of the initial conflict). A modeling study was conducted to compare different controller strategies based on lookahead times. Combining strategies can decrease the number of conflicts by over 21%.