Air Traffic Control System Research Articles

Trajectory-Planning of Arrival Aircrafts Aiming at Adjustment of Separation and Fair Sharing of Noise by Aircraft Vectoring

The increasing amount of air traffic has escalated both the damage caused by aircraft noise and the workload on air traffic controllers. Future air traffic control systems are expected to ensure a fair distribution of aircraft noise to reduce the damage per capita. In this paper, we propose an automatic trajectory-planning algorithm that disperses arriving trajectories simultaneously with adjusting arrival time and avoiding other aircrafts during flight to reduce the noise per capita on the ground surrounding the arrival route. This method estimates the noise on the ground by identifying in advance ground points at one kilometer intervals. Each ground point has a noise index that is calculated by a weight and a sound propagation model for every aircraft trajectory. The proposed method also estimates the time of arrival of each aircraft and adjusts the error from the required time of arrival to zero by making detours or shortcuts from the nominal route. It also considers other aircrafts and avoids confliction during flight by making detours.

Non-Conflict Air Traffic Control in Flight-Path Straightening Operations

Abstract Increasing the density of aircraft traffic and complication of schemes of the air traffic control (ATC) create difficulties for the air traffic control operator to make “by-hands” decisions for organization of non-conflict motions and providing their optimality on some criteria. Under this, the operator needs fore-handed analysis of his possible decisions and recommendations (from the automated ATC System) for detecting and solving possible conflict situations (of dangerous closing or approach). The paper is devoted to elaboration of algorithms of using the procedures for straightening the aircraft flight-paths w.r.t. its previous flight plan trajectories. Possible induced conflict situations are detected and necessary recommendations for their exclusion are given.

КОМПЛЕКСНАЯ БЕЗОПАСНОСТЬ ТРАНСПОРТНО-ЛОГИСТИЧЕСКОЙ СИСТЕМЫ СМЕШАННЫХ ПЕРЕВОЗОК

Objective: To study the conceptual approach to the problem of integrated security, involving cooperation of transport logistical system participants of multimodal transportation (TLS SP), including aerial cargo delivery system, on the principles of the unity of information environment and intellectualization of transport systems management using the global positioning system GLONASS/GPS. Methods: The methods of TLS SP systematization and structural decomposition were applied, as well as the method of TLS SP matrix simulation, considering collaboration of the means of production in case certain operations are performed by each traffic participant on all route stages from a manufacturer to a receiver. Results: Horizontal decomposition of TLS SP was performed on the principle of the unity of the main transport process, taking into account integrated security requirements at each stage of goods traffic from a manufacturer to a receiver: making up, loading, transportation on different types of transport, cargo transfer and unloading at a receiving point. The main areas of transport intellectualization in Russia and abroad were studied. The new requirements for intellectualization of airport systems, air traffic control systems and aviation services were considered, presenting a unified aviation system and determining further directions of systems study, taking into account the perturbing factors at all stages and activities of the system in question. The suggestions on TLS SP intellectualization areas at all stages of planning and transportation fulfillment from a manufacturer to a receiver were given, making it possible to provide further development of supply chain management concept and formation of 5PL-provider transportation services at the market. Practical importance: The suggestions on the formation of TLS SP integrated security system were developed, using the latest data management technologies – intellectual transport systems, in order to improve the security and efficiency of transport processes, to minimize the delays and to improve working conditions.

Técnicas inteligentes para la identificación y el seguimiento de fenómenos meteorológicos que podrían afectar la seguridad de vuelo

En la aviación, los fenómenos meteorológicos son uno de los aspectos más importantes para tener en cuenta en todas las etapas de vuelo, desde la planificación hasta el aterrizaje. El desarrollo de sistemas de predicción meteorológica aplicados a la aviación puede apoyar el proceso de toma de decisiones de los controladores de tráfico aéreo y los pilotos, facilitando el análisis de las variables meteorológicas y proporcionando una primera interpretación a disposición de todos los usuarios del sistema aéreo. Por esta razón el Centro de desarrollo Tecnológico para la Defensa (CETAD) tiene como principal objetivo en este documento describir los resultados del desarrollo de una metodología sistematizada que utiliza técnicas inteligentes para la detección, identificación y seguimiento de cualquier tipo de formación que por sus características pueda representar un riesgo para la aviación, generando a su vez información de soporte al controlador aéreo.Para esto es necesario primero identificar las formaciones convectivas, clasificarlas, filtrar el ruido e individualizarlas. Este tipo de procesos pueden ser automatizados a través del análisis inteligente de productos disponibles en cualquier sistema aéreo como las imágenes satelitales multiespectrales. Posterior a una identificación, se deben determinar un grupo de características que permitan desarrollar algoritmos eficientes capaces de realizar un seguimiento del comportamiento de la formación convectiva, que permita generar pronósticos de las características de los sistemas convectivos en el corto plazo, para lo que se requiere conocer otras variables como el viento en las áreas de análisis.Este tipo de aplicaciones integradas a los sistemas de control de tráfico aérea disminuirían los riesgos debidos factores meteorológicos.

Node-importance Evaluation in Air Traffic Control Equipment Based on Topological Potential

The navigation equipment in the air traffic control (ATC) navigation equipment network is important for the protection of air traffic services. Identifying the key nodes in the network can provide an effective theoretical basis for the operational continuity of the air traffic control system. This paper designs a complex network model of civil aviation air traffic control equipment with flight traffic flow on the route as the network side weights, analysis and evaluation the importance of ATC equipment by the node importance evaluation algorithm of the topology potential. In this paper, taking the Chengdu control area in the southwest as an example, evaluate the key nodes in the ATC navigation network, and sort the importance of navigation equipment. The results can be used as a relative performance index for the reliability and survivability of the navigation equipment network.

ADS-Bsec: A novel framework to secure ADS-B

Abstract The Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) protocol can be used as a complement to Radar-based Air Traffic Control (ATC), or as a replacement in areas where the latter is impractical. However, ADS-B messages do not include any integrity or authenticity thus they can be easily tampered using inexpensive hardware and open source software. Modifying ADS-B message format is infeasible because it would render the already large implemented base obsolete. This paper proposes ADS-Bsec, which addresses the ADS-B limitations while being compatible with the installed base. ADS-Bsec provides the missing integrity and authenticity into ADS-B packets using a key management infrastructure without altering the existing packet format. This paper also argues for including the proposed framework as a component of the NextGen infrastructure based on our experience in prototyping efforts using cognitive radios, cryptography and multilateration together with existing radar-based ATC systems.

ADS-B vulnerabilities and a security solution with a timestamp

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) is the foundation of NextGen Air Traffic Control (ATC) system, and all aircraft must be equipped with it by January 1, 2020. Despite the importance of ADS-B, it has been developed without security considerations and is subject to various types of attacks. A trustworthy system will make the NextGen system more reliable and make air transportation safer. But current safety measures are inadequate and many research proposals are not yet practical or cost-effective. We developed a practical method that can reject virtually all spoofed messages by monitoring the signal propagation time between senders and receivers. To measure the actual propagation time, the method uses a small timestamp value; hence, we call it ADS-B with Timestamp (ADS-BT). ADS-BT monitors the discrepancy between the time of flight based on the timestamp values and the time of flight based on the location data. In spoofed ADSB messages, the discrepancy between the two diverges over time, which allows us to identify spoofed messages accurately.

STC: Exposing Hidden Compromised Devices in Networked Sustainable Green Smart Computing Platforms by Partial Observation

Large-scale smart computing is generally more vulnerable to cyber attacks since their system devices are normally distributed as networked platforms and each device could be a target and get compromised. Due to resource constraints (i.e., Sustainable Computing demand) and cost-efficiency issues (i.e., Green Computing demand), we usually monitor only a few devices (i.e., partial observation) to ensure all operations across different platforms are under a secure environment. This leads to a critical problem for detecting compromised devices that are out of surveillance. To the best of our knowledge, this problem has not been solved so far. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised classifier based on source-tracing technique (STC in short) to expose hidden compromised devices with partial observation on the networked sustainable green smart computing platforms. STC mainly focuses on the cyber threats that can spread in the platform and compromise various system devices. To expose hidden compromised devices that are out-of-surveillance, STC first captures the spreading source by the reverse dissemination technique, and then relies on microscopic propagation modelling to probabilistically identify the most probable compromised devices. We carried out a series of experiments to validate the performance of our proposed method. The evaluations are based on three real networked platforms: Air Traffic Control system, AS-level Internet platform, and US Power Grid. The experiment results demonstrated that STC can accurately expose the hidden compromised devices in terms of following aspects: 1) Source-tracing (more than 80 percent runs got exact real source and 95 percent within two hops of real source); 2) Modelling (very close to the simulation results); 3) Exposing accuracy (almost all $>$> 90 percent); and 4) Comparison to baseline (superiority to three supervised and two unsupervised classifiers).

Distributed Flight Routing and Scheduling for Air Traffic Flow Management

Air traffic flow management (ATFM) is an important component in an air traffic control system and has significant effects on the safety and efficiency of air transportation. In this paper, we propose a distributed ATFM strategy to minimize the airport departure and arrival schedule deviations. The scheduling problem is formulated based on an en-route air traffic system model consisting of air routes, waypoints, and airports. A cell transmission flow dynamic model is adopted to describe the system dynamics under safety related constraints, such as the capacities of air routes and airports, and the aircraft speed limits. Our ATFM problem is formulated as an integer quadratic programming problem. To overcome the computational complexity associated with this problem, we first solve a relaxed quadratic programming problem by a distributed approach based on Lagrangian relaxation. Then a heuristic forward-backward propagation algorithm is proposed to obtain the final integer solution. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheduling strategy.

Evaluation of NextGen Air Traffic Control Alarms and Alerts Using Cognitive Walkthrough Method

In the air traffic control domain, there are no clear distinctions in the definition of critical safety messages, such as alarms and alerts. We therefore created a categorization scheme to distinguish alarms from the alerts and applied it to NextGen air traffic control systems: Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS), En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM), and Data Communications. Controllers then evaluated the effectiveness of the alarms and alerts of these NextGen systems. We used Cognitive Walkthrough method with the “thinking aloud” procedure to collect their spontaneous and immediate evaluation. Based on these evaluations, we present recommendations for the future NextGen air traffic control alarm and alert design.

Theoretical Aspects of Erroneous Actions During the Process of Decision Making by Air Traffic Control

Abstract The Theoretical Aspects of Erroneous Actions During the Process of Decision Making by Air Traffic Control evaluates the factors affecting the operational decision-making of a human air traffic controller, interacting in a dynamic environment with the flight crew, surrounding aircraft traffic and environmental conditions of the airspace. This article reviews the challenges of air traffic control in different conditions, ranging from normal and complex to emergency and catastrophic. Workload factors and operating conditions make an impact on air traffic controllers’ decision-making. The proposed model compares various operating conditions within an assumed air traffic control environment subsequently comparing them against a theoretically “perfect” air traffic control system. A mathematical model of flight safety assessment has been proposed for the quantitative assessment of various hazards arising during the process of Air Traffic Control. The model assumes events of various severity and probability ranging from high frequency and low severity up to less likely and catastrophic ones. Certain limitations of the model have been recognised and further improvements for effective hazard evaluation have been suggested.

Practical investigation of multiband mono‐ and bistatic radar signatures of wind turbines

The negative effects wind farm clutter has on the performance of radar systems for air traffic control and air surveillance is well known in the radar research community and several mitigation techniques have been proposed to address this problem. These include bi- and multistatic radar systems providing multiple views of the area under surveillance, and hence potential additional information that can be used to improve the receiver performance. This study presents the analysis of a set of experimental data collected simultaneously by two radar systems, one operating at S-band and one at X-band, of echoes from an operational wind farm in the UK near Oxford. This analysis presents several parameters extracted from the time domain data and the Doppler spectra, such as Doppler centroid and bandwidth of the micro-Doppler signature as well as amplitude statistics of the time domain returns. These parameters are characterised using data recorded at mono- and bistatic nodes, as well as at different polarisation combinations.

An adaptive large neighborhood search heuristic for solving a robust gate assignment problem

Robust gate assignment problem with transfer passengers and tows is considered.A large neighborhood search heuristic is proposed to solve the integrated problem.Extensive experiments are conducted to justify the performance of our approach. With the rapid growth of air traffic demand, airport capacity becomes a major bottleneck within the air traffic control systems. Minor disturbances may have a large impact on the airport surface operations due to the overly tight schedules, which results in frequent gate conflict occurrences during airports daily operations. A robust gate schedule that is resilient to disturbances is essential for an airport to maintain a good performance. Unfortunately, there is no efficient expert system available for the airport managers to simultaneously consider the traditional cost (the aircraft tow cost, transfer passenger cost) and the robustness. To fill this gap, in this paper, we extend the traditional gate assignment problem and consider a wider scope, in which the traditional costs and the robustness are simultaneously considered. A mathematical model is first built, which leads to a complex non-linear model. To efficiently solve this model, an adaptive large neighborhood search (ALNS) algorithm is then designed. We novelly propose multiple local search operators by exploring the characteristics of the gate assignment problem. The comparison with the benchmark algorithm shows the competitiveness of proposed algorithm in solving the considered problem. Moreover, the proposed methodology also has great potential from the practical perspective since it can be easily integrated into current expert systems to help airport managers make satisfactory decisions.

Detecting Global Navigation Satellite System Spoofing Using Inertial Sensing of Aircraft Disturbance

Vulnerability of Global Navigation Satellite System users to signal spoofing is a critical threat to positioning integrity, especially in aviation applications where the consequences are potentially catastrophic. Spoofing may even become a more serious risk to aviation in the near future with the rollout of the Global Navigation Satellite System-based next-generation air traffic control system and the corresponding reduction in reliance on ground-based radar systems by air traffic control. In this work, it was shown that, for an aircraft equipped with an inertial navigation system, the vehicle dynamic response to wind gusts provides an advantage in detecting a spoofing attack. The reason is that the aircraft’s response to a gust will be instantaneously reflected in inertial navigation system measurements but not in the spoofed Global Navigation Satellite System signal. The main contribution of this work is the development of a rigorous methodology to compute upper bounds on the integrity risk resulting from a worst-case spoofing attack, without needing to simulate individual aircraft approaches with an unmanageably large number specific gust disturbance profiles. A Boeing 747 aircraft model is used to demonstrate the performance of the inertial navigation system monitor under worst-case Global Navigation Satellite System spoofing and to investigate gust intensity levels that are sufficient to meet integrity risk requirements for precision approach and landing.

Learning Traffic Patterns at Small Airports From Flight Tracks

The majority of reported near-midair collisions that involve a general aviation aircraft occur in the vicinity of nontowered airports. A prior work has investigated the feasibility of creating an automated air traffic control system for these nontowered airports using solutions to a partially observable Markov decision process. Validating such system will require an accurate model of aircraft behavior in the traffic pattern. This paper evaluates the different approaches for deriving traffic pattern models from recorded radar data. The first approach is based on prior trajectory clustering work, where turning points in trajectories are identified and clustered. This method performs well on simulated data, but due to its reliance on noisy heading rates, it has difficulty with real-world data. The second approach uses Bayesian inference techniques to learn the parameters of the traffic pattern model, where a hidden semi-Markov model with a hierarchical Dirichlet process as a prior is investigated. Inference in this model is made computationally tractable using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. The turning point and Bayesian models are compared with each other using different $f$ - divergence measures, and the latter is found to better represent the observed data.

Метод оптимального розв’язання групових конфліктних ситуацій між повітряними суднами у тривимірному просторі

Мета: В сучасних умовах високої динамічності і щільності повітряного руху значно зростає небезпека критичного зближення відразу декількох повітряних суден і виникнення групових конфліктних ситуацій. Актуальною проблемою є розробка методів оптимального розв’язання групових конфліктних ситуацій, які повинні забезпечувати синтез безконфліктних траєкторій у тривимірному просторі. Методи: Розроблено метод оптимального розв’язання групових конфліктних ситуацій із застосуванням маневрування зміною курсу, швидкості та висоти польоту. Критеріями оптимальності визначені регулярність, економічність польотів і складність маневрування. Метод полягає у послідовному синтезі множини Парето-оптимальних комбінацій безконфліктних траєкторій сукупності повітряних суден з використанням дискретного багатокритеріального динамічного програмування та визначенні оптимальної комбінації із застосуванням із застосуванням згортки критеріїв оптимальності. В рамках методу визначено: процедуру формування безконфліктних комбінацій станів сукупності повітряних суден, які визначають комбінації Парето-оптимальних траєкторій; обмеження, які накладаються при дискретизації процесу розв’язання конфлікту для забезпечення відсутності неспостережуваних порушень ешелонування. Результати: Дослідження запропонованого методу виконано шляхом комп’ютерного моделювання, результати якого показали, що синтезована комбінація безконфліктних траєкторія забезпечує усунення групової конфліктної ситуації та відповідає встановленим критеріям оптимальності. Обговорення: Запропонований метод може бути використаний при розробці нових автоматизованих систем управління повітряним рухом, бортових систем попередження зіткнень, інтелектуальних тренажерів керування повітряним рухом та для проведення наукових досліджень.

Managing safety in the air traffic control terminal airspace

The air traffic control system is designed so that controllers are able to accept aircraft into their airspace and handoff aircraft exiting their airspace with minimal need to collaborate with other controllers. This system is designed to manage safety through constraints that rely on prohibitions and protections that limit scope of action. We contend that the focus on constraints has led us to neglect how controllers are actively and collaboratively managing safety. A framework of collaboration in ATC is proposed that guides the research. To provide a preliminary evaluation of this framework, ten observations were conducted with eight controllers handling normal traffic in a terminal control unit serving a city in Australia. Participants were all experienced controllers with a minimum of 25-year ATC experience and at least 10-year experience in their current position. In contrast to what would be expected if controllers were working within the constrained system as designed, 28% of the interactions between controllers could be classified as involving modifications to the plans for aircraft, which shows that controllers are actively managing safety. Further, different types of plan modification (replanning, plan amendment and building plans) and different strategies to negotiate plan modification (deferential, preferential and generational) could be identified. ATC procedures and training programmes are typically based on constrained safety and are largely silent on how controllers actively manage safety. We therefore need to include a consideration of how controllers are actively managing safety if we are to ensure effective system management now and into the future.

The Concept of Initial Air Traffic Situation Assessment as a Stage of Medium-Term Conflict Detection

Key decisions in the air traffic control system are supported by various technical systems. The most important include conflict detection and resolution (CD&R) systems. The main subject of this paper is a medium-term conflict detection system (MTCD). An excessive number of false alarms is one of the major functional problems of these systems in current implementations. They make the whole idea of CD&R systems less effective. The aim of this study is to present the concept of the system for the initial assessment of the overall level of complexity of the traffic situation. It should become the first stage of the MTCD system algorithm. The paper presents a general scheme of the model to assess the traffic situation based on fuzzy sets theory, and more specifically on the theory of fuzzy inference systems. Choosing this type of the model is justified by the lack of precise and well-defined relationships between the factors influencing the traffic situation complexity and its assessment, which is largely subjective. The paper discusses the input and output linguistic variables and briefly presents the results of simulation experiments conducted with the use of fuzzy inference system implemented in the SciLab environment. Experiments have confirmed the effectiveness of this solution and indicated the possibility of its inclusion in the MTCD system algorithm as a first stage. This will improve the MTCD software behavior with respect to alerting a controller about a detection of the conflict and supporting him/her by the development of proposals for its solution.

Internal Costumer Satisfaction: Turkish Air Traffic Control Services

This study traces to determine the internal customers in air traffic control services by using INTQUAL Scale I. In this study, the research method of another study was adapted to the new sector. New questionnaire statements were added. Hence, the dimensions of INTQUAL were changed. Air traffic control system works as a service manufacture system. In this regard, a questionnaire was prepared and applied to the air traffic controllers that work in the 3 international airports in Turkey. Some air traffic controllers that work in same operation feels less satisfied than the others. Also, there is same conclusion in different air traffic control units, too. In previous years, there is no study about air traffic controllers as this study. It is necessary to make the study like that for both providing improvement about the salary regulations and controllers’ work conditions.

Large-Scale Analysis of Aircraft Transponder Data

The increasing congestion of commercial airspaces necessitated more efficient air traffic control (ATC) methods. The Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) protocol is at the heart of the next-generation of ATC systems and is currently being rolled out in most countries. With ADS-B, an aircraft determines its own position by using global navigation satellite systems and broadcasts it periodically over the 1090-MHz radio frequency to ground stations or other aircraft in proximity. This approach increases the accuracy of aircraft localization and enables lower separation requirements and improved situational awareness for pilots and controllers. At the same time, it is supposed to significantly reduce the costs of air traffic surveillance compared with former independent surveillance radar systems.