Air traffic control

Summary

Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airspace. The primary purpose of ATC worldwide is to prevent collisions, organize and expedite the flow of air traffic, and provide information and other support for pilots. Air traffic controllers monitor the location of aircraft in their assigned airspace by radar and communicate with the pilots by radio. To prevent collisions, ATC enforces traffic separation rules, which ensure each aircraft maintains a minimum amount of empty space around it at all times. It is also common for ATC to provide services to all private, military, and commercial aircraft operating within its airspace, not just civilian aircraft. Depending on the type of flight and the class of airspace, ATC may issue instructions that pilots are required to obey, or advisories (known

Official source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_traffic_control

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Modeling and Optimization of Terminal Airspace and Aircraft Arrival Subject To Weather Uncertainties

Wei Zhang

We develop an accurate model for the arrival traffic dynamics in terminal airspace that takes into account the weather forecast and runway configuration changes. The planning of runway configuration switching subject to weather constraints is formulated as a hybrid optimal control problem and a hierarchical approach is proposed to solve the problem. At the upper level of the hierarchy, a runway configuration sequence is determined based on weather forecast data and air traffic demand. At the lower level, the configuration switching times and the corresponding aircraft speeds are determined by solving a Mixed Integer Linear Program. We illustrate the utility of the approach by a case study inspired by operations in John F. Kennedy airport

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics2011

Virtual Traffic Lights: System Design and Implementation

Sami Ben Hassen, Aurélien Pomini, Frank Schmutz

Traffic congestion is a daunting problem that is affecting the daily lives of billions of people across the world. Recently, a promising new traffic control scheme known as Virtual Traffic Lights (VTL) has been proposed for mitigating traffic congestion. VTL is an infrastructure free traffic control scheme that leverages the presence of Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications. Such infrastructure free scheme has several benefits, such as alleviating traffic congestion; reducing the large cost of traffic lights and traffic control systems; reducing carbon emission, etc. This paper reports a DSRC-based prototype design effort on VTL using Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) technology. The experiments performed show the feasibility of implementing VTL with DSRC technology. Preliminary results of the field tests conducted in Pittsburgh with vehicles using VTL equipment indicate that VTL is capable of coordinating traffic at intersections and reducing the commute time of people.

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Increasing Traffic Flows with DSRC Technology: Field Trials and Performance Evaluation

Aurélien Pomini

As traffic congestion becomes a huge problem for most developing and developed countries across the world, intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are becoming a hot topic that is attracting attention of researchers and the general public alike. In this paper, we demonstrate a specific implementation of an ITS system whereby traffic lights are actuated by DSRC radios installed in vehicles. More specifically, we report the design of prototype of a DSRC-Actuated Traffic Lights (DSRC-ATL) system. It is shown that this system can reduce the travel time and commute time significantly, especially during rush hours. Furthermore, the results reported in this paper do NOT assume or require all vehicles to be equipped with DSCR radios. Even with low penetration ratios, e.g., when only 20% of all vehicles in a city are equipped with DSRC radios, the overall performance of the designed system is superior to the current traffic control systems.

IEEE2018