Can airborne self separation safely accommodate very high en-route traffic demand?

Fifteen years after the “invention” of free flight an outstanding question still is: Can airborne self separation safely accommodate very high traffic demand? The aim of this paper is to answer this question for en-route airspace. Therefore an advanced airborne self separation concept of operation is evaluated on safety risk at very high traffic demands. The advanced airborne self separation concept of operations (ConOps) considered is of Trajectory Based Operation (TBO) type, in the sense that each aircraft manages a conflict free 4D trajecory intent and broadcasts this to the other aircraft. Complementary to this TBO layer, each aircraft makes use of a short term state based conflict detection and resolution layer which aims to resolve any remaining problems, such as significant deviations from 4D intents due to wind prediction errors. Safety risk analysis is conducted using advanced techniques in agent based modelling and rare event Monte Carlo simulation. The results obtained show that the airborne self separation concept of operations considered has a remarkably good collaboration between the TBO and the tactical resolution layers, as a result of which it can safely accommodate very high en-route traffic demands.

[1]  J. Krystul,et al.  A Particle System for Safety Verification of Free Flight in Air Traffic , 2006, Proceedings of the 45th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[2]  Heinz Erzberger,et al.  Safety Analysis for Advanced Separation Concepts , 2006 .

[3]  V. N. Duong,et al.  Conflict Resolution Advisory Service in autonomous aircraft operations , 1997, 16th DASC. AIAA/IEEE Digital Avionics Systems Conference. Reflections to the Future. Proceedings.

[4]  Paolo Fiorini,et al.  Motion Planning in Dynamic Environments Using Velocity Obstacles , 1998, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[5]  G. J. Bakker,et al.  ACCIDENT RISK ASSESSMENT FOR ADVANCED ATM , 1999 .

[6]  Henk A. P. Blom,et al.  Rare Event Estimation for a Large-Scale Stochastic Hybrid System with Air Traffic Application , 2009, Rare Event Simulation using Monte Carlo Methods.

[7]  David J. Wing,et al.  For Spacious Skies: Self-Separation with "Autonomous Flight Rules" in US Domestic Airspace , 2011 .

[8]  Henk A. P. Blom,et al.  Probabilistic reachability analysis for large scale stochastic hybrid systems , 2007, 2007 46th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[9]  Henk A. P. Blom,et al.  Compositional Specification of a Multi-Agent System by Stochastically and Dynamically Coloured Petri Nets , 2006 .

[10]  Henk A. P. Blom,et al.  Free flight collision risk estimation by sequential Monte Carlo simulation , 2006 .

[11]  Henk A. P. Blom,et al.  Safety of advanced airborne self separation under very high en-route traffic demand , 2011 .

[12]  Henk A. P. Blom,et al.  Safety Risk Assessment by Monte Carlo Simulation of Complex Safety Critical Operations , 2006, SSS.

[13]  M. Paglione,et al.  Aircraft conflict probe sensitivity to weather forecasts errors , 2007, 2007 IEEE/AIAA 26th Digital Avionics Systems Conference.

[14]  B. Klein Obbink,et al.  PILOT PERSPECTIVE OF ASAS SELF-SEPARATION IN CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENTS , 2005 .

[15]  David J. Wing,et al.  Human in the Loop Simulation Measures of Pilot Response Delay in a Self-Separation Concept of Operations , 2010 .

[16]  Brian T. Baxley,et al.  Safety Performance of Airborne Separation: Preliminary Baseline Testing , 2007 .

[17]  David J. Wing,et al.  Autonomous Flight Rules - A Concept for Self-Separation in U.S. Domestic Airspace , 2011 .

[18]  Rob C J Ruigrok,et al.  Human factors evaluations of Free Flight Issues solved and issues remaining. , 2007, Applied ergonomics.

[19]  Brian T. Baxley,et al.  Impact of Pilot Delay and Non-Responsiveness on the Safety Performance of Airborne Separation , 2008 .

[20]  Maria C. Consiglio,et al.  Estimation of Separation Buffers for Wind-Prediction Error in an Airborne Separation Assistance System , 2009 .

[21]  Yasuaki Abe,et al.  Collision avoidance method for multiple autonomous mobile agents by implicit cooperation , 2001, Proceedings 2001 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Expanding the Societal Role of Robotics in the the Next Millennium (Cat. No.01CH37180).

[22]  F. Maracich.  Flying free flight: pilot perspective and system integration requirement , 2005, 24th Digital Avionics Systems Conference.

[23]  Richard Barhydt,et al.  Development of Intent Information Changes to Revised Minimum Aviation System Performance Standards for Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (RTCA/DO-242A) , 2002 .

[24]  D. C. Rapaport,et al.  The Art of Molecular Dynamics Simulation , 1997 .

[25]  Henk A. P. Blom,et al.  Simulated Safety Risk of an Uncoordinated Airborne Self Separation Concept of Operation , 2009 .