Provably Safe Conflict Resolution With Bounded Turn Rate for Air Traffic Control

This brief presents a decoupled conflict resolution procedure (CRP) for en route air traffic control. The key concept is to split the main routes into multiple paths, which results in larger spacing between aircraft for enabling conflict-free intersections. These paths are then merged back into the original route to avoid additional conflicts in the region beyond the local space needed for the CRP. The main contribution of this brief is the development of CRPs that bound the heading change (turn) rate to account for limitations arising from aircraft turn dynamics. The proposed decoupled CRPs satisfy conditions for guaranteed safety (i.e., are provably safe) and do not lead to flow-capacity loss in either of the intersecting routes. Moreover, the impact of including the bounded turn-rate limitation is studied, and issues in the applicability of the proposed CRP are illustrated.