A Study on the Normalized Delineation of Airspace Sectors Based on Flight Conflict Dynamics

• Published in: Applied sciences 2023-11, Vol.13 (21), p.12070
• Main Authors: Peng, Yating, Wen, Xiangxi, Kong, Jiabin, Meng, Yanling, Wu, Minggong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air traffic control; Air transportation industry; Aircraft accidents & safety; Airports; Algorithms; Analysis; Aviation; Clustering; complex networks; flight conflicts; Genetic algorithms; integrated network metrics; Optimization algorithms; sector delineation; Velocity; Voronoi diagrams; Workloads
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app132112070

The study of airspace sector demarcation can help controllers to deal with complex air situations, provide reference for air traffic control services, reduce the workload of controllers, and ensure safe and efficient airspace operation. Based on complex network theory, this paper proposes a sector division method based on a mean shift clustering algorithm and a Voronoi diagram. Firstly, a flight conflict network is constructed based on the structural characteristics of the airborne flight situation, combined with the three-dimensional velocity barrier method and the aircraft protected area model. Secondly, six network topology indexes, such as the total node degree, average point strength and network density, are selected to construct the flight-situation-assessment index system, and the busy and idle time segments of the airspace are divided according to the comprehensive network indexes; finally, based on the historical flight data, the airborne aircraft in the busy and idle time segments are clustered using the mean shift clustering algorithm and the Voronoi diagram method, respectively, so as to obtain a sector division scheme. The simulation results show that this method can equalize the network topology indexes and provide a reference for the scientific allocation of controllers’ energy.