Flight Trajectory Planning for Continuous Aircraft Separation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current air traffic management systems, such as Arrival Managers, often assume common speed profiles or discrete separation points to ensure aircraft separation, which may not guarantee minimum separation along continuous flight trajectories, especially with individual speed profiles, leading to potential close approaches between aircraft.
Innovation Solution
A method to plan flight trajectories that adjusts an adjustable trajectory parameter, like arrival time difference, to ensure a predetermined minimum separation throughout the entire flight trajectory, considering individual speed profiles and continuous flight paths, by using polynomial functions and constant acceleration models to define position and time functions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If common speed profiles are assumed along continuous route parts to ensure separation, then the complexity of separation assurance is reduced, but the reliability of separation guarantee deteriorates because individual speed profiles may cause closer approaches between aircraft
Solution Approach 1:
The continuous flight route is divided into multiple discrete evaluation points. Instead of assuming common speed profiles along continuous route parts, the system evaluates separation at specific segmented locations (e.g., approach fix, final approach fix, threshold) to accurately capture individual aircraft speed variations while maintaining manageable computational complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary trajectory planning and speed profile adjustment before aircraft arrival. By pre-calculating required speed adjustments at multiple evaluation points and communicating these to aircraft before they enter the critical approach phase, the system ensures separation reliability without requiring complex real-time monitoring and control during the approach.
2Ease of operation
If separation is ensured only at discrete points to simplify management, then the ease of operation improves, but the reliability of continuous separation guarantee deteriorates because minimum separation may not be ensured on continuous parts of the route
Solution Approach 1:
The approach route is segmented into multiple discrete evaluation points (approach fix, final approach fix, threshold, and intermediate points). Separation is explicitly ensured at each segmented point by evaluating predicted positions and adjusting trajectories, providing both operational simplicity and continuous separation reliability through comprehensive point coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
While evaluation occurs at discrete points, the system ensures continuous separation by requiring that separation be maintained throughout the entire route segments between evaluation points. The trajectory adjustment instructions provided to aircraft ensure continuous compliance with minimum separation requirements, not just at discrete checkpoints.
3Measurement precision
If individual and detailed speed profiles are used in trajectory prediction to increase precision, then the measurement precision of aircraft positions improves, but the device complexity for planning and managing trajectories increases
Solution Approach 1:
Individual aircraft speed profiles are obtained from their respective flight management systems with high precision. The ATCO workstation segments the analysis by evaluating these detailed profiles at discrete predetermined points, allowing precise prediction of aircraft positions without requiring the planning system to continuously process every detail of individual speed profiles along the entire route.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses an intermediary evaluation process at predetermined points between the detailed individual speed profiles and the final separation decision. The ATCO workstation acts as an intermediary that receives precise position predictions from individual aircraft trajectories and processes them through a standardized evaluation framework, simplifying the overall planning complexity while maintaining high prediction precision.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for planning flight trajectories for at least two aircraft aiming to subsequently approach a predefined reference point, in particular a predefined destination, wherein each aircraft travels along a flight route according to an individual flight trajectory, such that a first aircraft travels along a first flight route according to a first flight trajectory and a second aircraft travels along a second flight route according to a second flight trajectory, wherein at least the second flight trajectory is set or adjusted such that at least one predetermined minimum separation between the two aircraft approaching the predefined destination according to their respective flight trajectories is ensured and the predetermined minimum separation is ensured throughout the whole flight trajectories by setting or adjusting an adjustable trajectory parameter (θ) of the first or second flight trajectory.