Distributed hierarchical MPC for conflict resolution in air traffic control

We present a decentralized Model Predictive Control scheme for hierarchical systems to tackle the collision avoidance problem for autonomous aircraft in an air traffic control setting. Using a low level controller, the aircraft dynamic equations are abstracted to simpler unicycle kinematic equations. The navigation function methodology is then used to generate conflict free trajectories for all aircraft. In order to ensure that the resulting trajectories respect the aerodynamic constraints of the aircraft, a decentralized model predictive controller is added at a higher level, to provide preview to the otherwise myopic navigation functions. The overall hierarchical, distributed control scheme has the same feasibility properties as the corresponding centralized scheme. Its performance is demonstrated by simulations of dense air traffic scenarios.

[1]  Rodney E. Cole,et al.  Assessment of the 60 km rapid update cycle (RUC) with near real-time aircraft reports. Project report , 1998 .

[2]  Dimos V. Dimarogonas,et al.  A feedback stabilization and collision avoidance scheme for multiple independent non-point agents, , 2006, Autom..

[3]  William B. Dunbar,et al.  Distributed Receding Horizon Control of Dynamically Coupled Nonlinear Systems , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.

[4]  William B. Dunbar,et al.  Distributed receding horizon control for multi-vehicle formation stabilization , 2006, Autom..

[5]  John Lygeros,et al.  Simulated Annealing: Rigorous finite-time guarantees for optimization on continuous domains , 2007, NIPS.

[6]  Daniel E. Koditschek,et al.  Exact robot navigation using artificial potential functions , 1992, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[7]  John Lygeros,et al.  A Stochastic Hybrid Model for Air Traffic Management Processes , 2007 .

[8]  Jonathan P. How,et al.  Robust distributed model predictive control , 2007, Int. J. Control.

[9]  David Q. Mayne,et al.  Constrained model predictive control: Stability and optimality , 2000, Autom..

[10]  Francesco Borrelli,et al.  Decentralized receding horizon control for large scale dynamically decoupled systems , 2009, Autom..

[11]  Dimos V. Dimarogonas,et al.  Distributed 3D navigation and collision avoidance for nonholonomic aircraft-like vehicles , 2009, 2009 European Control Conference (ECC).

[12]  Dimos V. Dimarogonas,et al.  A feedback control scheme for multiple independent dynamic non-point agents , 2006 .

[13]  James K. Kuchar,et al.  A review of conflict detection and resolution modeling methods , 2000, IEEE Trans. Intell. Transp. Syst..

[14]  Bart De Schutter,et al.  Multi-agent model predictive control for transportation networks: Serial versus parallel schemes , 2008, Eng. Appl. Artif. Intell..

[15]  Stephen J. Wright,et al.  Distributed MPC Strategies With Application to Power System Automatic Generation Control , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology.

[16]  Jan M. Maciejowski,et al.  Predictive control : with constraints , 2002 .

[17]  Riccardo Scattolini,et al.  Architectures for distributed and hierarchical Model Predictive Control - A review , 2009 .

[18]  Riccardo Scattolini,et al.  Decentralized MPC of nonlinear systems: An input‐to‐state stability approach , 2007 .