Separating air traffic flows by allocating 3D-trajectories

This paper introduces two algorithms which allocate optimal separated 3D-trajectories to the main traffic flows. The first approach is a 1 vs. n strategy which applies an A* algorithm iteratively to each flow. The second is a global approach using a genetic algorithm, applied to a population of trajectory sets. The algorithms are first tried on a toy problem, and then applied to real traffic data, using operational aircraft performances. The cumulated costs of the trajectory deviations are used to compare the two algorithms.