Multi-Party Flight Trajectory Negotiation for Upper Class E Traffic Management
Publication Date
1-1-2024
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Title
AIAA/IEEE Digital Avionics Systems Conference - Proceedings
DOI
10.1109/DASC62030.2024.10749424
Abstract
A new operational concept has been proposed in Upper Class E airspace at or above 60,000 feet (Flight Level / FL600), which will allow operators of diverse vehicle characteristics to cooperatively manage and share their operational intents with neighboring operators to avoid conflict. There is a consensus in the community that negotiation for strategic deconfliction is needed, but there are no specific guidelines for how the negotiation should be conducted. There is a need for a structured and cooperative way to resolve the conflict between a wide variety of aircraft projected to be operating in Upper Class E for the negotiation to be carried out routinely. The use of negotiation models are a promising solution that can resolve conflict risks during flight in real-time while taking into account the uncertainty of future vehicle positions and dynamic business considerations. A two-party negotiation model has been researched, but as the traffic demand grows, there is a higher likelihood of conflict involving multiple aircraft that would require a method to handle multi-party conflict. This paper proposes a cooperative multi-party negotiation model inspired by game theory concepts for application to flight trajectory negotiation in Upper Class E traffic management. This model can be applied in flight with operators communicating directly after a potential conflict is detected. Some of the model's benefits include allowing business costs to be private to operators, allowing operators to collaborate together to find conflict-free flight trajectories, and being compatible with different aircraft and operation types. This model provides a structured procedure for conflict resolution that can handle conflict involving multiple parties, assuming each operator is willing to take on a small cost to themselves in order to reduce the total cost to the group.
Funding Sponsor
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Keywords
Air Traffic Management, Negotiation Model
Department
Aviation and Technology
Recommended Citation
Shayna Gaulden, Tien Nguyen, Michael Korens, Wenbin Wei, Min Xue, Paul U. Lee, and Joseph Silva. "Multi-Party Flight Trajectory Negotiation for Upper Class E Traffic Management" AIAA/IEEE Digital Avionics Systems Conference - Proceedings (2024). https://doi.org/10.1109/DASC62030.2024.10749424
