Michael Schultz , Thomas Standfuss , Annette Temme , Ingrid Gerdes
DOI Number XXX-YYY-ZZZ
Conference Number HiSST 2018_10801022
To efficiently provide air navigation services for today’s and future airspace users, we introduce a dynamic airspace secorisation. Our approach approach covers operational, economic and ecological constraints under both nominal and dynamic air traffic flow conditions. We consequently changed the outdated paradigm ‘flow follows structure’ to an innovative approach of ‘structure follows flow’. In this way, we will contribute to a future flight-centric air traffic management. Based on actual air traffic movements (patterns), evolutionary algorithms are used for optimization of the airspace with a specific focus on high capacity utilisation through flexible use of airspace, appropriate distribution of task load for air traffic controllers and fast adaptation to changed operational boundaries. Already conducted analyses show that a dynamic sectorisation lead to enhancements of current operational structures (e.g. less deviation in controller task load) by means of decreased controller task load for the optimized airspace structure. We assume that dynamic airspace sectorisation effectively enables provision of appropriate structures for future 4D trajectories taken into account several aspects of air traffic, such as temporally restricted areas, convective weather zones or functional airspace blocks. Furthermore, our approach is also a reliable solution for future air traffic management in the context of urban flight operations, since it is scalable and already covers all aspects needed for balanced handling of dynamic air traffic flow.