Effectiveness of Conflict Resolution Methods in Air Traffic Management

Abstract

Aircraft fly en route under concurrent event situations (conflicting situations), which occur when they operate in the same airspace but are too close to each other in the same time frame. Hence, the safe horizontal distance between them is not less than the standard 5 nm. Free route airspace is such a concept, where such concurrent events need to be resolved when the location and number of such event “hotspots” are random in comparison with fixed route (conventional) airspace. This paper proposes two approaches to solving the traffic conflict in the sector by performing horizontal resolution maneuvers. The first of them uses the Dubins trajectory, while the second one uses a three-fold change of heading (3HC) method (for two types of angles). Apart from maintaining safe separation, we compared them, taking as a criterion the extension of the flight path of aircraft involved in the conflict, as the length of the flight is the primary factor determining flight time/delays and the increase in fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. There may be other algorithms depending on the different data that can be identified through further research.