Robustness Analysis of Flight Conflict Networks Based on Degree Correlation

Abstract

Analyzing the composition and robustness of flight conflicts is beneficial to find the vulnerable sources of conflicts and dissipate flight conflicts, and effectively improve the safety and operational efficiency of air traffic. Therefore, this paper proposes a flight conflict network robustness evaluation method based on degree correlation. Firstly, a flight conflict network is constructed by using the velocity obstacle method, and it is classified into three types of assortative, disassortative and neutral conflict networks according to the degree correlation of the network. Several common robustness metrics in complex networks are explored, and a comprehensive robustness metric is proposed. The relationship between degree correlation and robustness of conflict networks under different node removal methods is analyzed by simulation experiments. The results show that the false alarm rate of the flight conflict network is decreased by 37.5% compared with the traditional state network. The degree correlation of the flight conflict network is closely related to the robustness. The assortative and disassortative conflict networks demonstrate stronger vulnerability with degree and betweenness removal, respectively, and the stronger the correlation the more obvious the vulnerability. The robustness of the neutral conflict network does not differ significantly under the two removal methods. Compared with random deletion, target removal can significantly decrease the network robustness.INDEX TERMS Flight conflict; air traffic; complex networks; degree correlation; robustness