Formal Modeling of Air Traffic as System-of-Systems - Air Traffic as Systems of Interdependent Operational Decision Making Processes

The aviation system is comprised of many heterogeneous systems like airports, aircraft, airlines and ANSPs each working towards the common goal of enabling flight operations. Cooperation between them is required to improve on operational efficiency. However, stakeholders have conflicting objectives so that a method of mediation is needed to find compromises which enable benefits for the overall aviation system. Modeling diverse entities with their relations and interdependencies to each other is difficult as specific domain knowledge is required and interaction mechanisms between them need to be unified. This paper introduces a modeling methodology in the context of the System-of-Systems (SoS) concept. We demonstrate how to create a formal model of interdependent systems around the core concept of solvers which generate workable solutions of operational decision making problems and centralize input-output relationships between systems. This enables analysis of interdependencies and introduction of new solvers which integrate local decision problems and enable cooperation of conflicting systems. Our contribution allows to model and implement future cooperative decision making systems in aviation viewed as a SoS.