Aircraft

Air traffic flow and capacity management

In traditional air traffic management, static airspace structures cause inefficient traffic flows in highly congested traffic scenarios. Concepts such as dynamic airspace sectorization, mobile sectors, or long-range air traffic management (ATFM) are innovative approaches to providing safe and efficient operations. Constraints from specific flight planning and flight execution by airlines, the required avoidance of severe weather cells, or the avoidance of contrails are also aspects that must also be considered. Integrating autonomous traffic, high-flying platforms, and space traffic are major challenges. The efficient coordination of military aircraft movements while keeping civil air traffic in mind also requires joint efforts to research and realize innovative solutions. Our target is to ensure the high flexibility of military air traffic as well as punctual flights of commercial air traffic.

 

The research field can be divided into five areas: Arrival/ departure management, traffic flow control with different time horizons, digital tower and controller assistance technologies, civil-military integration, and space management. Although the individual challenges of these areas differ, from a scientific point of view there is a high synergy in the necessary technological developments. In close cooperation with the industry partners (service provider and users), we can transfer the acquired knowledge to other areas and thus consolidate the development work.

Arrival and departure management

Topics

The area surrounding the airport is defined as the Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA) or, more broadly, the Arrival Sequencing and Metering Area (ASMA). This area is primarily characterized by climbing and descending traffic, resulting in complex airspace interactions. The management of the arrival traffic primarily serves to optimize the use of limited capacities at the airport (e.g., at the runways). An early sequencing of incoming flights enables better optimization, but arrival times also exhibit growing uncertainties with greater distance to the airport.  Especially during periods of high demand, other airport system requirements must also be considered, such as departure flights or dense ground operations. The analysis of real flight trajectories and the development of new procedures are the main focus of this research area.

 

Technologies

  • Agent-based simulation of arrival/ departure traffic
  • Data-supported evaluation (machine learning) of flight tracks
  • Use of optimization methods for efficient aircraft sequencing

 

Publications (selection)

A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach for Airport Departure Metering Under Spatial–Temporal Airside Interactions
H Ali , DT Pham , S Alam , M Schultz (2022). IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 1-18.

Towards a greener Extended-Arrival Manager in air traffic control: A heuristic approach for dynamic speed control using machine-learned delay prediction model
Lim Zhi Jun, Sameer Alam, Imen Dhief, Michael Schultz (2022). Journal of Air Transport Management 103, 102250

Predictive classification and understanding of weather impact on airport performance through machine learning
M Schultz, S Reitmann, S Alam (2021). Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies 131, 103119

Probabilistic Prediction of Separation Buffer to Compensate for the Closing Effect on Final Approach
S Förster, M Schultz, H Fricke (2021). Aerospace 8 (2), 29

Air traffic flow and capacity management

Topics

During enroute flight, aircraft will pass different control areas (sectors) along the planned trajectories. These trajectories consider the capacity restrictions of the airspace sectors and the flight planning of airlines. With the concept of free route airspace, airlines have greater freedom in route design, but the complexity of the resulting traffic scenarios increases. Methods for segment-wise traffic aggregation, dynamic sectorization, and mobile sectors are innovative approaches to efficiently exploit the new capabilities in air traffic operations. With a focus on aviation as an integrated system, aspects of airline, airport, and ground management must also be considered in air traffic flow management.

 

Technologies

  • Agent-based simulation of airborne traffic using open-source models (OpenAP, OpenAP.top) and simulation environments (Bluesky)
  • Mathematical methods: optimization approaches, genetic algorithms, machine learning

 

Publications (selection)

Long Range Air Traffic Flow Management with Flight-Specific Flight Performance
J Rosenow, E Asadi, D Lubig, M Schultz, H Fricke (2022). Future Transportation 2 (2), 310-327

Implementation of a Long-Range Air Traffic Flow Management for the Asia-Pacific Region
M Schultz, D Lubig, E Asadi, J Rosenow, E Itoh, S Athota, V Duong (2021). IEEE Access 9, 124640-124659

From free-route air traffic to an adapted dynamic main-flow system
I Gerdes, A Temme, M Schultz (2020). Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies 115

Civil-military integration

Topics

Integrating new flying platforms and military operations into the current airspace comes with significant challenges. The available airspace along the preferred routes is limited, but integrated approaches for joint use can improve air traffic management. While civil air traffic focuses on predictability (stability of schedules) and thus on-time performance, military route planning and implementation require a high degree of flexibility. In order to reconcile these conflicting requirements, the current approach is to use airspace that is temporally closed to civil traffic. The development of adaptive airspace structures is intended to be an important step toward a more integrative solution.

 

Technologies

  • Agent-based simulation of flights with different mission profiles and objectives
  • Concept development and application-oriented implementation

Digital tower and assistance systems

Topics

Air traffic control provides monitoring and control structures to ensure safe operations. Controllers instruct pilots to ensure the required safety distances and to guarantee efficient procedures. With the availability of digital technologies, the jobs and workflows of air traffic controllers are also expected to change. The research in this area focuses on data-driven support that can indicate potentially complex/ critical situations in advance and suggest standardized guidance accepted by controllers (explainable machine learning of procedural sequences). The workplace of a tower controller also no longer necessarily has to be at the airfield, but can be transferred to any location using virtualization technologies.

 

Technologies

  • Mixed-reality environment to model a virtual working environment
  • Augmentation of the work environment, providing decision-making tools
  • Coupling virtual workplaces with operational simulations, as well as with real-world environmental data in real-time

 

Publications (selection)

Data-driven airport management enabled by operational milestones derived from ADS-B messages
M Schultz, J Rosenow, X Olive (2022). Journal of Air Transport Management 99, 102164

The impact of automation on air traffic controller’s behaviors
Y Wang, R Hu, S Lin, M Schultz, D Delahaye (2021). Aerospace 8(9), 260

Dynamic hot spot prediction by learning spatial-temporal utilization of taxiway intersections
H Ali, R Delair, D T Pham, S Alam, M Schultz (2020). Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics in Air Transportation

Space Management

Topics

The commercial realization of space flights and the national need for space operations require concepts for the integration of launches/ landings of the corresponding technologies into air traffic management. Aspects of safety as well as operational and procedural requirements must be considered. When integrating spaceports and effective flight management, the necessary procedures should have only a minor impact on the other users of the air traffic system. The research in this area focuses on the development and verification (simulation) of operational concepts (e.g.,  feasibility studies).

 

Technologies

  • Simulation of the air traffic system (Bluesky) with integration of safety assessments

 

Publications (selection)

Integration and Evaluation of the Impact of Space Vehicle Operations in the European ATM
T Luchkova, S Kaltenhäuser, N Klay, RBR Ang, M Schultz (2018). International Conference on High-Speed Vehicle Science Technology