Terminal area flight path generation using parallel constraint propagation
Michel Sadoune · 1989
A Flight Path Generator is defined as the module of an automated Air Traffic Control system which plans aircraft trajectories in the terminal area with respect to operational constraints. The flight path plans have to be feasible and must not violate separation criteria. The problem of terminal area trajectory planning is structured by putting the emphasis on knowledge representation and air-space organization. A well-defined and expressive semantics relying on the use of flexible patterns is designed to represent aircraft motion and flight paths. These patterns are defined so as to minimize the need for replanning and to smoothly accommodate operational deviations. Flight paths are specified by an accumulation of constraints. A parallel, asyn-chronous implementation of a computational model based on the propagation of constraints provides mechanisms to efficiently build feasible flight path plans. A methodology for a fast and robust conflict detection between flight path