Automation for separation with continuous descent operations: dynamic aircraft arrival routes

Abstract

This paper presents a mixed-integer programming approach to compute aircraft arrival routes in a terminal maneuvering area (TMA) with guaranteed temporal separation of all aircraft arriving within a given time period. Furthermore, the aircraft are assumed to be flying according to their optimal continous descent operation speed profile with idle thrust and no speed brakes usage. The arrival routes form a merge tree that satisfies several operational constraints; for example, all merge points are spatially separated. How the continuous descent operation speed profiles for different route lengths are computed is detailed. Experimental results are presented for calculation of fully automated continuous descent operation-enabled arrival routes during 1 h of operation on a busy day at a Stockholm terminal maneuvering area. The current framework successfully generates an arrival tree, merging the traffic from all TMA entry points to the runway for 30 min intervals. For a complete 1 h period, two trees (per 30 min) are computed that differ as little as possible.