Air Traffic Control
Air Traffic Control
Air Traffic Control
Abstract
This paper presents some research works on air traffic control conducted by the Safety Analysis
Group (GAS) of the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, related to
the CNS/ATM (Communication, Navigation, Surveillance/Air Traffic Management) context.
These research works aim to highlight the new challenges that will be adopted by
computational systems that will automate the air traffic control process, or support collaborative
decisions. These new challenges make sense due to the growing demand on air traffic and aim
to maintain the safety levels compatible to those used nowadays, or even to increase them. The
new air traffic control systems will depend more and more on computational systems, for
control, decision support and risk assessment. These researches have as new focus to certify
that the risk levels are equal to or even smaller than the current ones, in an environment of
increasing demand. Interdisciplinary concerns will have a very important role in this context,
because computer and aeronautic engineering must work together, seeking to attain this new
automation paradigms and a harmonious control of future needs, having in mind the human
agents involved in this process: pilot and air traffic controller.
Keywords: Safety Analysis, Certification, Air Traffic Control, Risk Assessment, Automation
1
Contacts:
João Batista Camargo Jr., Paulo Sérgio Cugnasca, Jorge Rady de Almeida Jr.
{joao.camargo, paulo.cugnasca, jorge.almeida}@poli.usp.br
Grupo de Análise de Segurança (GAS)
Departamento de Engenharia de Computação e Sistemas Digitais (PCS)
Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo (Poli-USP)
Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto, Trav. 3, N. 158 – São Paulo-SP, CEP: 05508-900, Brazil
Tel. +55 11 3091-5401 – Fax. +55 11 3091-5294
36 JOURNAL OF THE BRAZILIAN AIR TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH SOCIETY • VOLUME 4 • ISSUE 1 • 2008
responsibility of the countries in a scope of master and doctoral students of the Safety
regional planning and overall coordination. Analysis Group, including both the work
The ATM system provides the Air Traffic already completed, and those still in progress.
Management by means of cooperative The works are described in correlation with
integration of human resources, information, the ATM major functions, seeking to support
technology, facilities and services, for all the collaborative decisions.
ATM community. One of the major goals is Depending on the action line of the Safety
the establishment of a single global and inter- Analysis Group, much of the research fall
functional ATM system during all flight under Air Traffic Organization and
phases, for the whole ATM Community that: Management, Demand and Capacity Balance,
meets the standards of operational safety Traffic Synchronization and Conflict
established, provides optimized operations, is Managing/Management. Other researches
sustainable in relation to the environment and have been conducted, considering the
satisfies the national security requirements Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).
(Pequeno, 2007).
3.1. RESEARCHES IN AIR TRAFFIC
Considering this context, it is important to
MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION
highlight the major functions of ATM:
a) Availability Evaluation of Critical
• Air Traffic Organization and Management;
Computational Systems for Airspace Control
• Airports Operation;
using Analytical Models of Queuing Theory
• Demand and Capacity Balance;
(Pizzo and Cugnasca, 2006).
• Traffic Synchronization;
The use of the airspace is growing,
• User Traffic Operations;
considering civil aviation (expansions in
• Conflicts Management, and
aerial movements, airports and number of
• Management of ATM Service Deliveries.
passengers and volume of cargo) and military
The researches performed by the Safety
aviation, increasing the diversity of the
Analysis Group are within this approach and
activities to be accomplished in the airspace
are briefly described in the next item.
control activities. There is an increasing
3. RESEARCHES PERFORMED BY THE technical complexity, considering the
SAFETY ANALYSIS GROUP introduction of new features into the existing
The purpose of this section is to describe the automation systems or even the introduction
researches in the ATM area, conducted by of additional resources to automate some
38 JOURNAL OF THE BRAZILIAN AIR TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH SOCIETY • VOLUME 4 • ISSUE 1 • 2008
The growing demand for air transportation has Separation Assistance System (ASAS).
caused an increase in the density of aircraft With this system, which is still in
flow in the airspace. The overload of aircraft experimental phase, pilots become aware of
in airspace sectors, which are under the air the surrounding air traffic risks with up to 15
traffic controllers’ responsibility, causes a minutes in advance, without the help of air
permanent alert state in the air traffic traffic controllers on the ground. This
management. A single controller’s fault with antecedence is much greater than the one
monitoring and controlling a sector may provided by the current Traffic Collision
endanger hundreds of people’s lives. The air Avoidance System (TCAS). ASAS uses a
traffic controller has to perform many more advanced communication technology
activities in order to ensure safety to the air than Mode-C transponder, broadly used in the
space, being exposed to a certain workload. current civil aviation for collision avoidance
The Dynamic Resectorization can aim to purposes. The development of ASAS is being
balance the workload of the air traffic carried out intensively in Eurocontrol and in
controllers. The goal of this research work is other initiatives in the United States of
to investigate the behavior of the air traffic America, and this novel system is intended to
controller workload through the use of work in parallel with the current collision
Dynamic Resectorization, having as a case avoidance systems, acting as safety nets. The
study a Brazilian air space with high aircraft present study approaches the ASAS
density. application to improve the precision of
spacing between aircraft that sequentially
3.3. Researches in Traffic Synchronization
arrive at an airport, using the so called
a) Risk Analysis of Airborne Temporal
mathematical formalism “Stochastically and
Spacing by means of Stochastically and
Dynamically Colored Petri Net”, for
Dynamically Colored Petri Net (Oliveira,
evaluating quantitative data about accident
2007)
risks. These data indicate that the accident risk
Airspace safety can be considerably increased
is significantly smaller when aircraft pairs use
with the use of airborne spacing and
ASAS Spacing than when aircraft pairs do not
separation operations. Under this paradigm,
use ASAS Spacing.
the task of maintaining a safe distance
between aircraft is delegated to the pilots,
which will be supported by the Airborne
40 JOURNAL OF THE BRAZILIAN AIR TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH SOCIETY • VOLUME 4 • ISSUE 1 • 2008
3.4. Researches on Conflict Management for verifying safety conditions in air traffic
modeling of a decision-making aid tool is studied in more detail. To attain this aim, first
proposed based on the assessment of the the formal mathematical content is presented;
hazard level of collision between two aircraft next, the application context, that is
in operation UCSPA - Ultra Closely Spaced constituted by the Air Traffic Service,
runways, according to the minimum hazard approaching the specific case study, an
overview of using Hybrid Automata in Air
level regulated by the authorities. This tool is
based on a dynamic model of two aircraft in Traffic Control Systems is presented.
UCSPA approach operation scenarios under c) Aircraft Position Prevision Model for
which represent the uncertainties in the bow, positions problem considering the Brazilian
lateral position, longitudinal position and airspace. These predictions are very important
speed. The tool used in the computational for airspace surveillance systems, mainly for
simulation and in obtaining the numerical data detecting conflict among aircraft. The
is based on the Monte Carlo method. problem is studied for en route flights,
Confluence using Hybri Automata (Oliveira, minutes. First, the problem is proposed, so
This research work presents the application of management automation can be cleared. Then,
the Hybrid Automata mathematical language the necessary mathematical methods used to
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL AND THE CHALLENGES GENERATED FOR THE FUTURE COMPUTATIONAL SYSTEMS 41
study en route aircraft future position penalizing the safety levels of the air traffic
prediction are shown. The proposed model system. The reduction of the minimum values
employed to find the predictions makes use of of applied separation between aircrafts is one
linear regression of known aircraft positions, of the ways to enable the increase in the air
extrapolating its future positions. En route traffic system capacity. Considering its
flight conditions permit this approach. practical application, this work aims to
Prediction results are then compared with real contribute as a formal method to
aircraft positions, so that position estimates quantitatively evaluate the impact on safety
quality can be evaluated. Finally, ways of levels of air traffic systems, considering
practical application of the proposed model changes in its conceptual architecture,
inside computational systems used for aircraft improving the quality of its services and its
future position prediction are presented. This capacity.
allows surveillance airspace systems to make
3.5. Researches on Air Traffic Control
use of the predictions.
involving Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
d) Impact Assessment of the Use of New
a) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles modeling based
Surveillance Technologies on Air Traffic
on Multiagent Systems (Correa et al, 2006).
Control Safety (Vismari and Camargo, 2005).
This PhD research proposes a modeling of an
The main purpose of this Master’s research,
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – UAV taking as
already finished, is to propose and implement
its starting point the mobile robot concepts.
a new method, based on hybrid modeling
The most relevant concepts involve the
techniques and accelerated simulation,
"intelligent function," which means making
assessing the impact of the use of new
decisions, recognizing environments, adapting
technologies, especially the Automatic
to or learning, as well as taking "actions
Dependent Surveillance - ADS, on the air
similar to those of the human being" mean act
traffic system safety level . More specifically,
in the air as a real pilot, considering the rules
this work aims to evaluate the possibility to
of a safety flight, to fulfill its tasks. Once the
use surveillance systems based on ADS as a
robotics nature of the UAVs is understood,
way of reducing inaccuracies, to increase the
they, in general, must deal with environments
surveillance coverage levels of Aeronautics
partially observed - stochastic, dynamic and
and consequently reduce the values of
ongoing. Thus, a UAV needs to incorporate
minimum separation between aircraft, without
all knowledge about itself, about previous
42 JOURNAL OF THE BRAZILIAN AIR TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH SOCIETY • VOLUME 4 • ISSUE 1 • 2008
missions and its environment and about the network distributed throughout the territory of
tasks it will perform, so the UAV can learn the countries. Thus, the hazards such as an
quickly, and perform its duties safely. Finally, emergency landing without a proper runway,
a UAV should communicate and collaborate the lack of fuel at cruising altitude, and even
with other UAVs, civil aircrafts and air traffic the failure of any equipment inside the aircraft
controllers, all in accordance with the rules of are critical situations that this study is
the CNS / ATM. Therefore, a modeling from proposing.
the point of view of multiagent systems is c) Challenges in Application of Sensor Fusion
necessary to complete the robotic model. on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles - UAV
b) Reliability and Safety of Unmanned Aerial (Furtado and Camargo, 2007)
Vehicles (UAVs) in Civil Aviation (Correa et Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are
al, 2006) becoming a reality in several countries, in the
The pressure from the aviation airlines and the military and in the civil sphere areas. In
entire aviation market demands new Brazil, there are already several researches
technologies, allowing an increase in the involving different aspects such as reliability,
number of aircraft in the controlled airspace. autonomy, communication and safety for the
Considering this kind of application, many development and support of this new
researches are being made in the area of challenge to the aviation world. The sensor
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). fusion can be an important contribution to
However, this type of aircraft is still in a very make possible the implementation of these
preliminary development stage for use in vehicles as a way of "feeling" the
commercial aviation. This doctoral research environment around the aircraft, bringing
aims to assess solutions that employ UAVs, more precise data for the on board systems.
verifying and assuring their reliability and This PhD research seeks to identify the
critical safety, since such automation solutions problems involved, as well as the key issues
imply the replacement of pilots by computers. to be explored and to propose appropriate
Another consequence of this research is also methods using sensor fusion techniques,
the possibility of replacing air traffic viewing their implementation in UAVs.
controllers by another automated system, d) Assessment of Quantum Communication in
which would imply a fully automatic critical Aeronautic Telecommunication Network
system, depending on a wide computer (Costa and Camargo, 2006).
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL AND THE CHALLENGES GENERATED FOR THE FUTURE COMPUTATIONAL SYSTEMS 43
4. CHALENGES FOR THE of these systems and the need to ensure its
COMPUTATIONAL SYSTEMS safety and reliability.
The evolution of air traffic control systems is Following this trend, enormous challenges
an ever increasing need in the light of a will be imposed to the computer systems;
growing demand. Considering the CNS/ATM among them, the following can be
paradigm, new management and control forms emphasized: computational modeling of
should be investigated with special attention artificial complex systems, the transition from
to the decision support systems. Pilots and air the traditional silicon technologies to other
traffic controllers should be advised by ones, and development of quality systems,
support systems. Without such systems, it will considering their availability, accuracy,
be very difficult to meet the huge demand. safety, scalability, persistency and ubiquity.
These decision support systems are directly Computation is becoming increasingly
related to the distribution of intelligence ubiquitous, i.e., it is everywhere. Therefore,
between the various elements of the air traffic there is a great challenge, that is, the way of
control system. At first, some tasks can be checking the safety of complex critical
transferred from the air traffic controller to the systems, bearing in mind the emergence of
pilots. At a second moment, however, many new technologies such as quantum
of the tasks performed by the controllers and computing, which may endanger the safety
pilots may be supported by automated aspects guaranteed by classical cryptography.
systems, which will support the decisions of Considering the huge complexity of critical
the human beings involved. systems and also new forms of threats that are
Therefore, there should be a greater emerging because of new technologies, other
distribution of decisions, providing the risk analysis methods must be rethought in
creation of fault tolerant distributed systems order to obtain a greater confidence in the
with high availability and safety level. These analysis performed. Taking into consideration
systems should be fully integrated, promoting that the absence of failures can not be
collaborative decision-making in real time. guaranteed, the most adequate is to work with
Thus, the computer systems tend to acquire a robust and fault tolerant systems, able to self-
growing responsibility. This implies that one correct, or even able to continue generating
must bear in mind the enormous complexity safe services despite having less capacity or
functionality (degraded operation).
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL AND THE CHALLENGES GENERATED FOR THE FUTURE COMPUTATIONAL SYSTEMS 45