A decentralized method for collision detection and avoidance applied to civil aircraft

With the increasing density level of airspace, the flawed logic of resolution in air conflict has become a potential hazard to keep flight safety for civil aviation. A powerful decision-support system is needed to identify and resolve potential conflicts on planned trajectory in advance. Existing st...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part G, Journal of aerospace engineering Journal of aerospace engineering, 2021-05, Vol.235 (6), p.621-645
Main Authors: Niu, Haotian, Ma, Cunbao, Han, Pei
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air safety
Aircraft
Aircraft accidents
Airspace
Algorithms
Civil aviation
Collision avoidance
Collision dynamics
Conflict resolution
Decision support systems
Flight safety
Segments
Selectivity
Trajectories
Weight analysis
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Summary:With the increasing density level of airspace, the flawed logic of resolution in air conflict has become a potential hazard to keep flight safety for civil aviation. A powerful decision-support system is needed to identify and resolve potential conflicts on planned trajectory in advance. Existing studies on this subject mainly focus on the centralized means, but seldom consider the decentralized approaches. In this paper, a decentralized method is proposed so that each aircraft can generate the collision-free Reference Business Trajectory (RBT) autonomously, and resolve potential conflicts while conforming to the unified rules. Firstly, a Synchronous Discrete-Time-Discrete-Space trajectory modeling is developed to divide the continuous planned trajectory into multiple trajectory segments according to motion state. Thus, the collision can be accurately located at one certain risky segment, and the corresponding collision time can be acquired precisely. Through a weight analysis of collision time, the critical trajectory segment is determined to implement the task of conflict resolution. Then, the Optimal Reciprocal Collision Avoidance (ORCA) algorithm is adopted and extended to determine the collision-free maneuver with the consideration of direction selectivity. At last, the Trajectory Change Points (TCPs) are achieved by the quadratic program for each aircraft. The proposed method can help aircraft generate collision-free RBT in decentralized way successfully. Several simulations are conducted to confirm the validity and efficiency of the proposed approach.
ISSN:0954-4100
2041-3025
DOI:10.1177/0954410020953045