Airspace availability estimation for traffic flow management using the scanning method

Abstract

We present a new method for airspace availability estimation based on scanning an ATC sector or Center with sets of parallel lines cast in a series of directions, e.g. every 20 degrees for a complete 360-degree horizon. The scan lines may encounter actual or forecast convective weather. Based on the maximum actual intensity or forecast probability of convective weather, we determine if a given weather area is permeable by a scan line. The ratio of the number of scan lines that can permeate all convective weather in a Center vs. the total number of scan lines crossing the Center determines its airspace availability in a given direction for a particular hour. We then create "Wind Rose" style charts depicting directional availability of airspace in ATC Centers impacted by convective weather. This method is applied to comparing the accuracy of different convective forecast products. We also discuss further applications such as computing directional availability vs. directional demand and building airspace queuing delay models, from simple to more complex.

The Value of Reduced Uncertainty in Air Traffic Flow Management

“…Klein, Cook, and Wood use a scan line technique, which determines the amount of blockage in various directions through a sector and then translating that into a measure of directional capacity. 15 Another technique for estimating capacity is derived from the workload of the controller of a sector and translating that into a capacity measure. [16][17][18] Operationally, the capacity of a sector is called the Monitor Alert Parameter and is roughly 5 3 times the average historical dwell time for flights in that sector in clear weather situations.…”

Disaggregation Method for an Aggregate Traffic Flow Management Model

“…Using the LDSM, it is observed that there is a major flow going through ZKC-ZAU-ZOB under normal weather conditions. Because of the weather impact, the center capacity of ZAU is assumed to have a 75% reduction [20]. Under this assumption, the optimization model and the disaggregation algorithm generate a routing strategy such that around 70% of the flights, which use the ZKC-ZAU-ZOB route under normal weather conditions, used a route ZKC-ZMP-ZOB instead.…”

Predicting Peak Sector Occupancy with Two-Hour Convective Weather Forecasts

“…3 More complex weather-impact models measure aspects of convective weather in terms of some property meaningful from a traffic flow management perspective. In order to capture directional aspects of capacity, a scanning method was developed that runs "scan lines" along particular directions 4 . Scan lines that intersect convective weather meeting a particular criteria are seen as partially or totally unusuable; it is assumed that aircraft do not deviate from the scan line.…”

“…Our third and final translation model is inspired by work of Klein et al 4 and is manifested as three related but distinct models. Each variant defines the same set of parallel scan lines and uses some aspect of their intersection with the forecasted convective polygons as the relevant feature (see Figure 3).…”