SYSTEM PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF CENTRALIZED AND DECENTRALIZED AIR TRAFFIC SEPARATION STRATEGIES

This work investigates the system performance characteristics of centralized and decentralized strategies for air traffic separation. A centralized separation strategy and two decentralized separation strategies, implemented as constant-speed heading-change maneuvers, were simulated for randomized horizontal traffic patterns at various traffic densities. Human decision-making of controllers and pilots were not modeled. The centralized strategy represents a controller-oriented separation system generating coordinated resolution advisories that emphasize system-level stability. The decentralized strategies represent user-oriented separation systems generating independent resolution advisories that emphasize aircraft-level efficiency. Results from numerical experiments indicate that system stability and efficiency both degrade as traffic density increases, for all separation strategies. Although decentralized separation strategies can give rise to a significant domino effect, the resulting drop in system efficiency (relative to a centralized strategy that suppresses the domino effect) is quite small for traffic densities up to a certain threshold density. Introducing even a limited stability emphasis

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