Stability of intersecting aircraft flows using heading-change maneuvers for conflict avoidance

This paper analyzes two intersecting flows of aircraft that must avoid each other, utilizing maneuvers modeled by instantaneous heading changes. Sufficient conditions are derived for stable conflict avoidance, whereby one aircraft´s conflict-avoidance action does not generate cascaded diverging conflict-avoidance behavior (known as the domino effect) in neighboring aircraft. The mathematics involved with the heading-change model are considerably more complex than those using the simpler offset-maneuver models utilized in the previous work. However, this additional effort is largely compensated by the improved realism of the maneuver model, as well as new insights in the inherent robustness of conflict-avoidance maneuver schemes based on heading changes against specified separation standards. The analytical results are compared with simulations.