Air Traffic Control Separation Minima: Part 2 – Transition to a Trajectory-based System

2011 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 673-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Brooker
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Control ◽  
Traffic Management ◽  
Transition Period ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Difficult Decision ◽  
Strategic Plans ◽  
Support Tools ◽  
Future Situation ◽  
System Part ◽  
Alerting Systems

Current strategic plans for Air Traffic Management (ATM) envisage a transition from radar control to a trajectory-based system. Part 1 sketched the historical origins of separation minima and then analysed the safety thinking behind current minima and the issues involved in risk modelling. Part 2 examines the future situation. This focuses on the intermediate steps to the final system – upgraded capabilities in a mixed-equipage system. Future traffic mixes two categories of traffic: V aircraft, i.e. vectored traditional ATC-handled, and 4D aircraft, i.e. flying on 4D trajectories. Conflict probe and other decision support tools will need to be in place, inter alia to prevent controller workload from increasing. Conceptually, future risks in the transition period will be the sum of three types of aircraft encounter risk: V/V, 4D/4D and 4D/V. These pose different kinds of problem for ATC, appropriate conflict alerting systems and risk assessment. The numbers of 4D/V encounters increase rapidly with growth in the proportion of 4D aircraft. With reduced minima, airborne collision avoidance systems would be unlikely to resolve higher relative velocity encounters were the ATC system to fail. It would be a difficult decision to reduce markedly ATC separation minima for any category of aircraft encounters during the transition period.

Air Traffic Control Separation Minima: Part 1 – The Current Stasis

2011 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Brooker
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Control ◽  
Traffic Management ◽  
Air Traffic Control ◽  
Air Traffic Management ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Present System ◽  
Risk Modelling ◽  
Safety Issues ◽  
Strategic Plans ◽  
The World

Current strategic plans for air traffic management (ATM) envisage a transition from radar control to a trajectory-based system. The future ATM concepts are very different in a great number of aspects from the present system. The focus here is on the design of safe systems, in particular the appropriate air traffic control (ATC) separation minima. This Part 1 sketches the historical origins of ATC separation minima and then analyses the safety thinking behind current minima and the issues involved in risk modelling. Why have the critical minima largely remained unchanged for several decades – stasis? Part 2 then addresses key safety issues in the transition to the new ATM concept.‘Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.’ Archimedes.

Ensuring the implementation of the modernized structure and automation of air traffic control processes in the area of responsibility of the Moscow district of air traffic control

2018 ◽  
pp. 46-54
Author(s):  
A. V. Strukova
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Control ◽  
Traffic Management ◽  
Air Traffic Control ◽  
Management System ◽  
Air Traffic Management ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Security System ◽  
System Description ◽  
Functional Capabilities ◽  
Traffic Management System

The article considers the new automated air traffic management system «Synthesis AR4», as well as a system description for ensuring the implementation of a modernized airspace structure, navigation and surveillance that provides technical capabilities. A number of functional capabilities and advantages of the airspace security system are presented.

scholarly journals Advanced Flight Planning and the Benefit of In-Flight Aircraft Trajectory Optimization

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1383
Author(s):  
Judith Rosenow ◽  
Martin Lindner ◽  
Joachim Scheiderer
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Traffic Management ◽  
Trajectory Optimization ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Weather Forecasts ◽  
Aircraft Trajectory

The implementation of Trajectory-Based Operations, invented by the Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research program SESAR, enables airlines to fly along optimized waypoint-less trajectories and accordingly to significantly increase the sustainability of the air transport system in a business with increasing environmental awareness. However, unsteady weather conditions and uncertain weather forecasts might induce the necessity to re-optimize the trajectory during the flight. By considering a re-optimization of the trajectory during the flight they further support air traffic control towards achieving precise air traffic flow management and, in consequence, an increase in airspace and airport capacity. However, the re-optimization leads to an increase in the operator and controller’s task loads which must be balanced with the benefit of the re-optimization. From this follows that operators need a decision support under which circumstances and how often a trajectory re-optimization should be carried out. Local numerical weather service providers issue hourly weather forecasts for the coming hour. Such weather data sets covering three months were used to re-optimize a daily A320 flight from Seattle to New York every hour and to calculate the effects of this re-optimization on fuel consumption and deviation from the filed path. Therefore, a simulation-based trajectory optimization tool was used. Fuel savings between 0.5% and 7% per flight were achieved despite minor differences in wind speed between two consecutive weather forecasts in the order of 0.5 m s−1. The calculated lateral deviations from the filed path within 1 nautical mile were always very small. Thus, the method could be easily implemented in current flight operations. The developed performance indicators could help operators to evaluate the re-optimization and to initiate its activation as a new flight plan accordingly.

scholarly journals Key Aspects of Occupational Health and Safety towards Efficiency and Performance in Air Traffic Management

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Dimitriou ◽  
Stylianos Zantanidis
Keyword(s):  
Quality Management ◽  
Occupational Health ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Traffic Management ◽  
Air Traffic Control ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Occupational Health And Safety ◽  
Air Traffic Management ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Key Aspects

This paper/chapter deals with the key drivers for adopting and developing an Occupational Health and Safety System (OHS) with a special focus on air traffic management and traffic controller’s workplace. A such system includes regulation and legal compliance procedures, actions and monitoring for ensuring workplace safety, incentives and motivation for the air traffic controller and associate personnel health and wellbeing. By a systemic approach, the key characteristics of OHS towards air traffic management are presented, highlighting the key aspects for implementing a quality management system in air traffic control, which is the cornerstone of airport operation efficiency and productivity on one hand; and the nature of job and the intensive working environment is well recognised. Based on air traffic providers functional analysis the key occupational aspects for air traffic control are taken into consideration, providing the benefits for implementing quality management systems (QMS) and OHS is real business. Conventional wisdom is to highlight the importance for establishing and incorporating a modern custom-made OHS system in accordance with the requirements addressed by OHSAS 18001 to develop and implement a QMS for air traffic services. Contribution of this paper is to highlight the key priorities for managers and decision makers in field of air traffic services providers, depicting ways and recommendation for adopting an efficient path for implementing OHS in a QMS environment.

scholarly journals Selected Aspects of Using the Telemetry Method in Synthesis of RelNav System for Air Traffic Control

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milan Džunda ◽  
Natália Kotianová ◽  
Peter Dzurovčin ◽  
Stanislav Szabo ◽  
Edina Jenčová ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Computer Simulation ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Navigation System ◽  
Traffic Management ◽  
Air Traffic Control ◽  
Air Traffic Management ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Relative Navigation ◽  
Positioning Accuracy ◽  
Satellite Navigation System

Accuracy is an important factor in air traffic management which is why high requirements are necessary for each navigation system. The aim of this article is to describe the principles of the RelNav system and telemetry and their accuracy. We present the algorithms of the relative navigation system, which could be used for air traffic control in the case of the unavailability of satellite navigation system signals. This article sums up the different positioning methods, and deals with the accuracy of the relative navigation system (RelNav). Furthermore, the article considers the factors that influence the positioning accuracy. For this task, a computer simulation was created to evaluate the accuracy of the telemetric method. Next, we discuss the principles of telemetry and algorithms for calculating the position of the flying object (FO).

scholarly journals In-Flight Aircraft Trajectory Optimization within Corridors Defined by Ensemble Weather Forecasts

Aerospace ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Lindner ◽  
Judith Rosenow ◽  
Thomas Zeh ◽  
Hartmut Fricke
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Control ◽  
Traffic Management ◽  
Trajectory Optimization ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Parameter Uncertainties ◽  
Weather Forecasts ◽  
Fuel Savings ◽  
Flight Plan ◽  
Aircraft Trajectory

Today, each flight is filed as a static route not later than one hour before departure. From there on, changes of the lateral route initiated by the pilot are only possible with air traffic control clearance and in the minority. Thus, the initially optimized trajectory of the flight plan is flown, although the optimization may already be based upon outdated weather data at take-off. Global weather data as those modeled by the Global Forecast System do, however, contain hints on forecast uncertainties itself, which is quantified by considering so-called ensemble forecast data. In this study, the variability in these weather parameter uncertainties is analyzed, before the trajectory optimization model TOMATO is applied to single trajectories considering the previously quantified uncertainties. TOMATO generates, based on the set of input data as provided by the ensembles, a 3D corridor encasing all resulting optimized trajectories. Assuming that this corridor is filed in addition to the initial flight plan, the optimum trajectory can be updated even during flight, as soon as updated weather forecasts are available. In return and as a compromise, flights would have to stay within the corridor to provide planning stability for Air Traffic Management compared to full free in-flight optimization. Although the corridor restricts the re-optimized trajectory, fuel savings of up to 1.1%, compared to the initially filed flight, could be shown.

Simple Models for Airport Delays During Transition to a Trajectory-Based Air Traffic System

2009 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 555-570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Brooker
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Control ◽  
Traffic Management ◽  
Queuing Theory ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Transition Process ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Operational Feature ◽  
The Impact

It is now widely recognised that a paradigm shift in air traffic control concepts is needed. This requires state-of-the-art innovative technologies, making much better use of the information in the air traffic management (ATM) system. These paradigm shifts go under the names of NextGen in the USA and SESAR in Europe, which inter alia will make dramatic changes to the nature of airport operations. A vital part of moving from an existing system to a new paradigm is the operational implications of the transition process. There would be business incentives for early aircraft fitment, it is generally safer to introduce new technologies gradually, and researchers are already proposing potential transition steps to the new system. Simple queuing theory models are used to establish rough quantitative estimates of the impact of the transition to a more efficient time-based – four-dimensional (4D) – navigational and ATM system. Such models are approximate, but they do offer insight into the broad implications of system change and its significant features. 4D-equipped aircraft in essence have a contract with the airport runway – they would be required to turn up at a very precise time – and, in return, they would get priority over any other aircraft waiting for use of the runway. The main operational feature examined here is the queuing delays affecting non-4D-equipped arrivals. These get a reasonable service if the proportion of 4D-equipped aircraft is low, but this can deteriorate markedly for high proportions, and be economically unviable. Preventative measures would be to limit the additional growth of 4D-equipped flights and/or to modify their contracts to provide sufficient space for the non-4D-equipped flights to operate without excessive delays. There is a potential for non-Poisson models, for which there is little in the literature, and for more complex models, e.g. grouping a succession of 4D-equipped aircraft as a batch.

scholarly journals Challenges Caused by the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in the Air Traffic Management

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 96-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zsolt Sándor
Keyword(s):  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Traffic Management ◽  
Unmanned Vehicles ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Aviation Industry ◽  
Operational Environment ◽  
Flight Operations ◽  
Aerial Vehicle ◽  
Operational Issues

The increasing number of unmanned aerial vehicle poses new challenges in the aviation industry especially the air traffic control, which is responsible for the safe flight operations in the controlled airspaces. In order to protect the conventional aircraft a new operation environment has to be created, which guarantee the safe flying and the possibility of the fulfilment of the flight. In the article drone related safety and operational problems are highlighted. All issue connected to the coexistence of manned and unmanned aircrafts are critical, thus their management have significant importance.Spread and wide use of unmanned aerial vehicle traffic management systems (UTM) can manage the critical operational issues, but is has to be defined that what is the problem, what is the scope, what is the operational environment. Services and functions related to the operation of the UTM system are defined, which are necessary for the safe flying fulfilled by the unmanned vehicles.

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