STATIC SECTORIZATION RESULTS FOR DALLAS FORT WORTH CENTER USING DYNAMIC PROGRAMMING

摘要

Dynamic Airspace Configuration (DAC) is a new paradigm for airspace that aims at migrating from a rigid airspace structure to a more flexible airspace. The United States National Airspace System (NAS) is a vast resource. Efficient management of airspace capacity is important to ensure safe and systematic operation of the NAS eventually resulting in maximum benefit to the stakeholders. DAC is one of the NextGen Concept of Operations (ConOps) that aims at efficient allocation of airspace as a capacity management technique. The primary initiative here is to strike a balance between airspace capacity and air traffic demand. This paper is a proof of concept for the Dynamic Programming (DP) approach to Dynamic Airspace Configuration (DAC) by static sectorization. The objective of this paper is to address the issue of static sectorization by partitioning airspace based on controller workload i.e. airspace is partitioned such that the controller workload is balanced between adjacent sectors. Several algorithms exist that address the issue of static restructuring of the airspace to meet capacity requirements on a daily basis. We compare the sectorization results of our algorithm with the current day ZFW ARTCC sectors and lay a foundation for future work in dynamic resectorization.