A sequencing model for a team of aircraft landing on the carrier

Abstract Safety and efficiency are crucial for landing a team of aircraft in order to improve the combat capability of aircraft carrier. One way to enhance the safety and efficiency level of the landing mission is to optimize the landing sequence. It can shorten the landing time consumption and improve the capacity of deck as well as flight safety. In this paper, a modeling and sequencing approach for landing a team of aircraft is proposed. Firstly, the sequencing problem for landing a team of aircraft (SPLTA) is described by introducing each procedure of the landing mission. The traffic in the terminal area and the strategy for failed-to-land aircraft (FLA) are paid more attention because they are closely related to the SPLTA. Then the state change of a single aircraft in flight and exchanges of aircraft in the terminal area are taken into account. The overall SPLTA is formulated into an optimization problem with a cost function subjected to realistic constraints. To solve the SPLTA, a dynamic sequencing algorithm using ant colony method (DSAAC) is proposed to enable a team of aircraft to land with an optimal sequence. In the experiments, the SPLTA is solved using a “least fuel first service” (LFFS) principle based method, the ant colony optimization algorithm (ACO) based method, the static sequencing algorithm of ant colony (SSAAC) and the DSAAC. It shows that the DSAAC performs better than other three methods in minimizing the cost function and the landing time consumption. Furthermore, DSAAC guarantees a higher level of flight safety and yields an effective response to dynamic circumstance. The DSAAC approach provides an intelligent tool for overall air traffic management on aircraft carrier.

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