Methods for Operations Planning in Airport Decision Support Systems

Simulation and decision support tools can help airport ground controllers to improve surface operations and safety, leading to enhancements in the process of traffic flow management. In this paper, two planning approaches for automatically finding the best routes and sequences for demanded operations are proposed and analyzed. These approaches are integrated into a general decision support system architecture. The problem addressed is the global management of departure operations, moving aircraft along airport taxiways between gate positions and runways. Two global optimization approaches have been developed together with a suitable problem representation: a modified time-space flow algorithm and a genetic algorithm, both aimed at minimizing the total ground delay. The capability and performance of these planning techniques have been illustrated on simulated samples of ground operations at Madrid Barajas International Airport.

[1]  Hanif D. Sherali,et al.  Linear Programming and Network Flows , 1977 .

[2]  Gregory D Glockner.  Effects of Air Traffic Congestion Delays Under Several Flow-Management Policies , 1996 .

[3]  Jean-Marc Alliot,et al.  Optimization of air traffic control sector configurations using tree search methods and genetic algorithms , 2002, Proceedings. The 21st Digital Avionics Systems Conference.

[4]  Marc Schoenauer,et al.  Genetic Algorithms for Air Traffic Assignment , 1994, ECAI.

[5]  John H. Holland,et al.  Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems: An Introductory Analysis with Applications to Biology, Control, and Artificial Intelligence , 1992 .

[6]  Dušan Teodorović,et al.  A spatial and temporal bi‐criteria parallel‐savings‐based heuristic algorithm for solving vehicle routing problems with time windows , 1997 .

[7]  Eugene P. Gilbo.  Optimizing airport capacity utilization in air traffic flow management subject to constraints at arrival and departure fixes , 1997, IEEE Trans. Control. Syst. Technol..

[8]  E. Piazza.  A-SMGCS routing and guidance functions , 2000 .

[9]  A. Odoni,et al.  Models for the Ground Holding Problem , 1993 .

[10]  George Luger,et al.  Artificial Intelligence: Structures and Strategies for Complex Problem Solving (5th Edition) , 2004 .

[11]  Daniel Delahaye,et al.  Reduction of Air Traffic Congestion by Genetic Algorithms , 1998, PPSN.

[12]  Songjun Luo,et al.  On the Airline Schedule Perturbation Problem Caused by the Ground Delay Program , 1997, Transp. Sci..

[13]  Herman Vandevenne,et al.  Evaluation of runway-assignment and aircraft-sequencing algorithms in terminal area automation , 1995 .

[14]  V. Tosic,et al.  A MODEL TO SOLVE EN ROUTE AIR TRAFFIC FLOW MANAGEMENT PROBLEM : A TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL CASE , 2005 .

[15]  Airport Modelling : Capacity Analysis of Schiphol Airport in 2015 , 2005 .

[16]  Randolph W. Hall,et al.  Handbook of transportation science , 1999 .

[17]  A. Odoni.  The Flow Management Problem in Air Traffic Control , 1987 .

[18]  Nicolas Durand,et al.  Aircraft ground traffic optimization , 2001 .

[19]  Nicolas Durand,et al.  Aircraft ground traffic optimisation using a Genetic Algorithm , 2001 .

[20]  John E. Beasley,et al.  Scheduling aircraft landings at London Heathrow using a population heuristic , 2001, J. Oper. Res. Soc..

[21]  Nicolas Durand,et al.  Handling CFMU slots in busy airports , 2002 .

[22]  Eugene P. Gilbo,et al.  Airport capacity: representation, estimation, optimization , 1993, IEEE Trans. Control. Syst. Technol..

[23]  Giorgio Romanin-Jacur,et al.  The Multiple Connections Multi-Airport Ground Holding Problem: Models and Algorithms , 1998, Transp. Sci..

[24]  David E. Goldberg,et al.  Genetic Algorithms in Search Optimization and Machine Learning , 1988 .

[25]  J.A. Besada,et al.  Planning techniques for airport ground operations , 2002, Proceedings. The 21st Digital Avionics Systems Conference.

[26]  J. G. Herrero,et al.  Use of map information for tracking targets on airport surface , 2003 .

[27]  Hanif D. Sherali,et al.  Linear programming and network flows (2nd ed.) , 1990 .

[28]  Janić Milan,et al.  The flow management problem in air traffic control: a model of assigning priorities for landings at a congested airport , 1997 .

[29]  Jacob Tsao,et al.  Empirical Analysis of Airport Capacity Enhancement Impacts: A Case Study of DFW Airport , 1999 .

[30]  Nicolas Durand,et al.  Neural Nets Trained by Genetic Algorithms for Collision Avoidance , 2000, Applied Intelligence.

[31]  Carlo Mannino,et al.  Models and solution techniques for frequency assignment problems , 2003, 4OR.

[32]  E. Gilbo.  Arrival / Departure Capacity Tradeoff Optimization : a Case Study at the St . Louis Lambert International Airport ( STL ) , 2003 .