Dynamical-Network Evaluation and Design Tools for Strategic-to-Tactical Air Traffic Flow Management

Abstract

The objective of this research is to develop tools for comprehensive design and optimization of air traffic flow management capabilities at multiple spatial and temporal resolutions: at a national airspace-wide scale and one-day time horizon (strategic time-frame); and at a regional scale (of one or a few Centers) and a two-hour time horizon (tactical time-frame).

To achieve this goal, we aim to develop a suite of tools for designing complex multi-scale dynamical networks, and in turn to use these tools to comprehensively address the strategic-to- tactical traffic flow management problem. The two directions of intellectual merit in tool development include 1) the meshed modeling/design of flow- and queueing-networks under network topology variation for cyber- and physical- resource allocation, and 2) large-scale network simulation and numerical analysis. This research will yield aggregate modeling, management design, and validation tools for multi-scale dynamical infrastructure networks, and comprehensive solutions for nation-wide strategic-to-tactical traffic flow management using these tools.

Year 2 results are summarized in the following.

  1. 1)  The refinement of the stochastic weather-impact (WI) simulator (developed in Year 1) to significantly enhance planned weather forecasting capabilities for the Next Generation Air Traffic System. Specific results include: 1) selection of representative weather-impact scenarios, 2) incorporation of storm-motion-direction information in model parameterization, 3) data-driven airport-weather modeling, 4) incorporation of the weather-impact model into a solution for strategic-to-tactical traffic management, and 5) validation of the developed simulator.

  2. 2)  The development of tools to evaluate and design management strategies in the presence of both weather and traffic demand uncertainties. Specific results include: 1) the modeling framework that integrates stochastic demand, uncertain weather, and management, 2) the jump-linear approach for tractable transient performance evaluation, 3) the multivariate probabilistic collocation (PCM) approach for effective simulation, 4) the meshed PCM and jump-linear approach for effective near-optimal management solution design, and 5) realistic cost function and its impact on the optimal solution.

  3. 3)  The construction of a hierarchical center-sector stochastic transmission model as a framework for the strategic-to-tactical Traffic Flow Management scheme. According to the center-sector geometry, a two-level air transportation network is built, in which the upper level (center flow transmission network) simulates the traffic flow among three centers (ZAU, ZID and ZOB) and the lower level (sector flow transmission sub-network) describes the traffic flow among sectors inside each center. Historical traffic data is utilized to tune the parameters in this hierarchical network. The 20-center hierarchical center-sector network will be developed.

We envision that these results address critical needs in the strategic-to-tactical traffic management in the national airspace system (NAS). Moreover, the analytical tools developed broadly permit the tight conjoining of cyber- and physical- resources in designing decision-support capabilities for infrastructure networks.

Award Number: 1035386

 

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Submitted by Sandip Roy on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 09:53