Complexity Science Applications to Dynamic Trajectory Management

Systems thinking, in the context of complex adaptive systems, provides a framework for dynamic trajectory management in a NextGen-based National Airspace System (NAS). The tools developed under this framework would draw their power from agent-based technologies, applied through computationally efficient combinatorial mathematics. The approach would transform air traffic control from managing individual aircraft behaviors to managing systemic behavior of air traffic in the NAS. A system built on the approach would provide the ability to know when regions of airspace approach being “full,” that is, having non-viable local solution space for optimizing trajectories in advance. The capability would also allow for optimization of domain-specific parameters such as airspace capacity and business case metrics. An approach for evaluation of such a system with humans-in-the-loop is suggested.