The Dynamic Planner: The Sequencer, Scheduler, and Runway Allocator for Air Traffic Control Automation

摘要

The Dynamic Planner (DP) has been designed, implemented, and integrated into the Center-TRACON Automation System (CTAS) to assist Traffic Management Coordinators (TMCs), in real time, with the task of planning and scheduling arrival traffic approximately 35 to 200 nautical miles from the destination airport. The TMC may input to the DP a series of current and future scheduling constraints that reflect the operational and environmental conditions of the airspace. Under these constraints, the DP uses flight plans, track updates, and Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) predictions to calculate optimal runway assignments and arrival schedules that help ensure an orderly, efficient, and conflict-free flow of traffic into the terminal area. These runway assignments and schedules can be shown directly to controllers or they can be used by other CTAS tools to generate advisories to the controllers. Additionally, the TMC and controllers may override the decisions made by the DP for tactical considerations. The DP will adapt its computations to accommodate these manual inputs.nThis paper begins with an overview of CTAS in general and the Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) tool in particular. It lists the DP's inputs and outputs as well as the other CTAS software components required to run the DP. The heart of the paper describes the principal algorithms and data structures of the DP. This description includes a detailed discussion of the design and operation of the scheduling sequencing, runway allocation, and miles-in-trail advisor modules of the DP. The paper concludes with a description of the methodology used in the design of the DP, the DP's current daily operational use to schedule real air traffic, and future DP research.