An approach to air traffic density estimation and its application in aircraft trajectory planning

In this paper air traffic density is introduced as a new method for predicting and resolving aircraft conflicts. Based on a simplified stochastic differential equation model of aircraft dynamics, a simulation-based method is employed to predict the likelihood of aircraft presence in different part of the airspace. Air traffic density generated thus indicates the congestion zones to be avoided. The conflict resolution is then performed by solving an optimization trajectory planning problem. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithms.