Strategic pre-departure coordination with stochastic trajectory modeling

Abstract

Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) will rely on “negotiated flight paths” to satisfy objectives of both individual users (expressed through their user preferred trajectories) and the whole system in an equitable and efficient manner to the fullest extent possible. Though there exist intensive research activities for in-flight, tactical trajectory coordination, relatively little work has been done on strategic pre-departure trajectory coordination. Herein, we focus on oceanic pre-departure coordination where there is often sufficient time in FAA controlled airspace to make adjustments to trajectories and smaller portions of the flight occur in the domestic environment where strategic trajectory coordination may be further away. The strategic nature of this coordination considers the potential contention along the entire flight time, accommodating random departure delay and planned changes through the pre-departure four-dimensional (4D) stochastic trajectory model. A series of capabilities will be required to allow a negotiation of flight profiles. The existing capability, the Dynamic Oceanic Track System Plus (DOTS Plus), only de-conflicts trajectory conflicts at the oceanic entry points without explicitly addressing the conflicts between aircraft trajectories beyond the oceanic entry points. We explore levels of coordination with enhanced insight for both the Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) and the airspace user. Based on the pre-departure 4D stochastic models previously developed, this paper aims to propose a framework and algorithms for storing data for congestion depiction, for creating a pre-departure plan, and for alerting users when a change in situation allows a previously denied request to be satisfied. Each of these capabilities takes into account potential contention and induced cost along the entire flight time of each individual trajectory.