STREAM OPTION MANAGER (SOM) - AUTOMATED INTEGRATION OF AIRCRAFT SEPARATION, MERGING, STREAM MANAGEMENT, AND OTHER AIR-TRAFFIC-CONTROL FUNCTIONS

Stream Option Manager (SOM) is a proposed concept for automated integr ation of aircraft separation, merging and stream management, using lin ear programming techniques. It was developed as part of a research and development initiative for air traffic control (ATC) automation conce pts; sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and perfor med by MITRE Corporation, SOM is research; it has not been approved by the FAA for use in future ATC. SOM's purpose is to resolve possible p roblems involving multiple aircraft with given flight paths. Each airc raft must be separated by a minimum distance from every other aircraft at all times, and certain sets of aircraft (e.g., those about to land at a particular airport) must be merged or metered (lined up, or sepa rated in trail by a given distance), Aircraft in sets called streams m ust be separated in the along-route direction at all times, Each aircr aft is also subject to certain speed limits. Given the pilot-preferred flight paths, and separation, metering, stream, and speed requirement s, SOM finds modified flight paths for each aircraft that satisfy all the requirements yet stay as close as possible to the pilot-preferred paths. SOM's algorithm is to represent the (x, y, z) positions of each aircraft at future times as variables in a linear program, The requir ements are expressed or approximated by linear inequalities or equalit ies, Pilot preferences are approximated by a linear objective function , The SOM algorithm has been implemented successfully in a prototype s imulation in 2D, Scenarios with up to 15 aircraft and 24 separation an d/or merging problems have been resolved.