Dynamic Flow Scheduling in Air Traffic Network Based on Game Theory

Abstract

Recently, many works have employed deterministic strategies in dealt with flow scheduling problem in Air traffic flow management (ATFM). In practice, however, they are proved unreasonable for omitting airline’s preference in ATFM. In this paper, we develop a novel air traffic flow control model based on game theory to solve this problem in air traffic network. In the flow model, a resource (link/time pair in air traffic network) allocation strategy that uses sequential game method to predict traffic allocation is proposed in resource sharing environment. The problem of multiple airlines competes for an optimal route is formulated as a multi-player dynamic game. Through finding the Nash equilibrium solution of the multi-player dynamic game, the optimal flow scheduling is also formed at the same time. The flow model also incorporates many key characteristics of ATFM, such as competitive airlines, allowing multiply flow control strategies and so on. Numerical simulation results show the feasibility of solving the air traffic flow control problem using game theory on the air traffic network.