A heuristic algorithm for aircraft landing scheduling problem

Abstract

This paper considers Aircraft Landing Problem (ALP) in the context of optimal runway utilization. A heuristic algorithm is proposed to minimize a penalty cost function associated with the difference between the determined landing time and the target landing time. The objective is to obtain an optimal schedule for a sequence of a finite number of aircraft that can use 1, 2, or 3 runways. The constraints are defined in relation to the time window bounded by the earliest and latest landing times. Six single-objective simulation optimization tasks were solved, namely 2 tasks on 1 runway, one with sequences of 10 and the second with sequences of 20 aircraft, 2 tasks on 2 runways with sequences of 10 and 20 aircraft, respectively, and 2 tasks on 3 runways with sequences of 10 and 20 aircraft. The solutions found are optimal. The results show that the proposed algorithm has a good performance and can be used for solving real-life optimization problems of this type.