ABSTRACT
The global greenhouse effect and air pollution problems have been deteriorating in recent years. The power generation in the future is expected to shift from fossil fuels to renewables, and many countries have also announced the ban on the sale of vehicles powered by fossil fuels in the next few decades, to effectively alleviate the global greenhouse effect and air pollution problems. In addition to electric vehicles (EVs) that will replace traditional fuel vehicles as the main ground transportation vehicles in the future, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have also gradually and more recently been widely used for military and civilian purposes. The recent literature estimated that UAVs will become the major means of transport for goods delivery services before 2040, and the development of passenger UAVs will also extend the traditional human ground transportation to low-altitude airspace transportation. In recent years, the literature has proposed the use of renewable power supply, battery swapping, and charging stations to refill the battery of UAVs. However, the uncertainty of renewable power generation cannot guarantee the stable power supply of UAVs. It may even be very possible that a large number of UAVs need to be charged during the same period, causing congestion in charging stations or battery swapping facilities and delaying the arranged schedules of UAVs. Although studies have proposed the method of that employing moving EVs along with wireless charging technology in order to provide electricity to UAVs with urgent needs, the charging schemes are still oversimplified and have many restrictions. In addition, different charging options should be provided to fit the individual need of each UAV. In view of this, this work attempts to meet the mission characteristics and needs of various UAVs by providing an adaptive flight path and charging plan attached to individual UAVs, as well as reducing the power load of the renewable power generation during the peak period. We ran a series of simulations for the proposed flight path and charging mechanism to evaluate its performance. The simulation results revealed that the solutions proposed in this work can be used by UAV operators to fit the needs of each individual UAV.
ABSTRACT
The aviation industry is facing highly volatile developments in the recent years: Following a steady growth phase with prosperous projections, the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the aviation system rather hard. While having gradually entered a recovery process in the years 2021 and 2022, with load factors close to those in the year 2019, the airspace bans between Russia, Europe, and other regions in the world, as part of the ongoing conflict centered around Russia and Ukraine, threaten the orderly operation of flights. This study explores the byproducts and potential impact of airspace bans on the aviation system and its stakeholders, by deriving a ranking of country importance and how they have the potential to influence our aviation system. While being rooted in the analysis of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, our framework is built up in a generic way and computes an overall country importance metric. We believe that our study contributes to the better understanding of the consequences airspace bans have on our society and the severe needs for effective policies and regulations of such emerging forms of conflict resolution.
ABSTRACT
Civil Aviation is a vital sector of the global economy. The US National Airspace System (NAS) provides a network of airspace, air navigation facilities, equipment, services, airports, technical information, and personnel needed for the operation of civil aviation in the United States. The capacity of the airspace in the current system is primarily limited by the ability of the air traffic controllers to maintain situational awareness and provide separation services to the aircraft. Currently, there is an unprecedented decline of between 56% and 60% in air traffic demand due to the outbreak of corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic in China and its rapid spread to the rest of the world. Before the pandemic, the 2020 FAA forecast predicted the air traffic demand to grow over the next 20 years with an annual growth rate of about 2%. This anticipated increase in traffic will put a further strain on the airports and the airspace;it will result in large delays, airline schedule breakdown, and adverse environmental impact. The system needs to address developments and anticipated explosive growth in low speed and low-cost urban air mobility vehicles. This article provides an overview of Air Traffic Management (ATM) in the United States, brief review of current aviation operations, research under development, and technology and infrastructure upgrades currently being deployed to enable the current aviation system to meet the needs of future aviation systems. Air traffic operations need to be harmonized across all parts of the globe to achieve standardization and efficiency of operations. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
ABSTRACT
Flexible use of airspace (FUA) introduced activation of civil and military airspaces for a defined period rather than being continually designated as purely civil or military. Flight operators that are not users of activated airspaces avoid them with rerouting, which usually results in more miles than planned and has an additional negative effect on the environment. As air traffic recovers to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, it is interesting to observe the improvements that FUA has brought with the activation of airspaces for a period shorter than 24 hours. The paper explores the difference in environmental impact with and without FUA. Fast-time simulation is made in Croatian airspace observing three airspaces with different horizontal and vertical limits. Research findings show that FUA decreases the number of aircraft affected by airspace activation compared to 24-hour activation. Decreased number of affected aircraft reduces environmental impact. It can be concluded that the volume of the activated airspace is not as important as its position within the airspace, especially within the terminal airspace. The highest environmental impact is shown, as expected, with an extension of activated airspace to en-route vertical limits, which affected an increased number of flights. Users of FUA should be aware of the environmental impact and air traffic controllers' workload when deciding upon the period of airspace reservation. © 2022 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V.
ABSTRACT
BEL and AAI collaborate on Air Traffic Management Systems In a major boost to its own diversification drive into non-defence and the Government's 'Make in India' programme, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Airports Authority of India (AAI), under it's R&D initiative, at Wings India 2022, entered into an agreement for the joint, indigenous development of systems for air traffic management and surface movement of aircraft at airports in the country which were hitherto being imported. Under this Agreement, BEL and AAI will jointly develop Civil Air Traffic Management System (ATMS) with Advanced-Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (ASMGCS), a complex ground surveillance system that manages air traffic at airports and in Indian Civil Airspace for safe operation of flights from take-off to landing. The aim of ATMS with ASMGCS is to provide the air traffic controller with the complete air traffic picture of the coverage area while interacting with Primary/ Secondary Radar, Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), Multi-lateration System (MLATs), and navigational equipment such as GPS, Instrument Landing System (ILS) and Doppler Very High Frequency Omni Range (DVOR). Boeing: India to lead South Asia air traffic growth Boeing shared projections for South Asia's commercial aviation sector over the next 20 years, with the region leading the world in yearly passenger traffic growth.
ABSTRACT
The Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR) program aims at modernizing and harmonizing the European airspace, which currently has a strongly fragmented character. Besides turbulence and convection, in-flight icing is part of SESAR and can be seen as one of the most important meteorological phenomena, which may lead to hazardous flight conditions for aircraft. In this study, several methods with varying complexities are analyzed for combining three individual in-flight icing forecasts based on numerical weather prediction models from Deutscher Wetterdienst, Météo-France, and Met Office. The optimal method will then be used to operate one single harmonized in-flight icing forecast over Europe. As verification data, pilot reports (PIREPs) are used, which provide information about hazardous weather and are currently the only direct regular measure of in-flight icing events available. In order to assess the individual icing forecasts and the resulting combinations, the probability of detection skill score is calculated based on multicategory contingency tables for the forecast icing intensities. The scores are merged into a single skill score to give an overview of the quality of the icing forecast and enable comparison of the different model combination approaches. The concluding results show that the most complex combination approach, which uses iteratively optimized weighting factors for each model, provides the best forecast quality according to the PIREPs. The combination of the three icing forecasts results in a harmonized icing forecast that exceeds the skill of each individual icing forecast, thus providing an improvement to in-flight icing forecasts over Europe.
ABSTRACT
Purpose>The purpose of this paper is to create and analyze the effectiveness of a new runway system, which is totally created for the future free route operations.Design/methodology/approach>This paper researches and analyses the new generated runway concept with the fast time simulation method. Fuel consumption and environmental effect of the new runway system are calculated based on simulation results.Findings>According to different traffic density analyses the Omnidirectional Runway with Infinite Heading (ORIH) reduced fuel consumption and CO2 emissions up to 46.97%. Also the total emissions of the ORIH concept, for the hydro carbon (HC), carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) pollutants were lower than the total emissions with the conventional runway up to 83.13, 74.36 and 51.49%, respectively.Practical implications>Free route airspaces bring many advantages to air traffic management and airline operations. Direct routes become available from airport to airport thanks to free route airspace concept. However, conventional single runway structure does not allow aircraft operations for every direction. The landing and take-off operations of a conventional airport with a single runway must be executed with only two heading direction. This limitation brings a bottleneck direct approach and departure route usage as convenient with free route airspace concept. This paper suggests and analyzes the omnidirectional runway with infinite heading (ORIH) as a solution for free route airspace.Originality/value>This paper suggests a new and futuristic runway design and operation for the free route operations. This paper has its originality from the suggested and newly created runway system.
ABSTRACT
Purpose>The purpose of this study is to provide an alternative graph-based airspace model for more effective free-route flight planning.Design/methodology/approach>Based on graph theory and available data sets describing airspace, as well as weather phenomena, a new FRA model is proposed. The model is applied for near to optimal flight route finding. The software tool developed during the study and complexity analysis proved the applicability and timed effectivity of the flight planning approach.Findings>The sparse bidirectional graph with edges connecting only (geographically) closest neighbours can naturally model local airspace and weather phenomena. It can be naturally applied to effective near to optimal flight route planning.Research limitations/implications>Practical results were acquired for one country airspace model.Practical implications>More efficient and applicable flight planning methodology was introduced.Social implications>Aircraft following the new routes will fly shorter trajectories, which positively influence on the natural environment, flight time and fuel consumption.Originality/value>The airspace model proposed is based on standard mathematical backgrounds. However, it includes the original airspace and weather mapping idea, as well as it enables to shorten flight planning computations.
ABSTRACT
Separation assurance is an important facet of the safety guarantee in the the National Airspace System (NAS). Separation requirement for aircraft are defined by horizontal and vertical separation buffers depending on the type of aircraft and type of airspace. The violation of these standards or encroachment into the separation buffers are indicative of reduced safety margins in the airspace. We analyze the buffer encroachment trends in the terminal airspace of 24 major airports in the U.S. over a period of 21 months from April 2019 to December 2020. The analysis measures the duration of encroachments within the terminal airspace for 15-minute epochs and the trends across the airports and their temporal evolution. The period at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in mid-March 2020 and the slow recovery over the remainder of the year is of special interest as it provides a natural experiment for evaluating the impact of unusually low traffic density on aviation operations. Our analysis indicates that the airports show significant variability in the encroachment levels. Some airports like Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) show encroachment levels higher than expected during the reduced traffic period. Furthermore, the trends reveal spikes in encroachment levels during the pre-pandemic period at other airports like Atlanta International Airport (ATL) and Denver International Airport (DEN). The observed trends suggest the utility for real-time measurement of buffer encroachments across airports as a proxy for monitoring safety margin levels and aid the decision-making of different stakeholders. © 2021, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc.. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Advances of early twenty-first century aviation and transportation technologies provide opportunities for enhanced aerial projects, and the overall integration of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS) has applications across a wide range of operations. Through these, remote operators have learned to manage several UAS at the same time in a variety of operational environments. The present work details a component piece of an ongoing body of research into multi-UAS operations. Beginning in early 2020, NASA has collaborated with Uber Technologies to design and develop concepts of operations, roles and responsibilities, and ground control station (GCS) concepts to enable food delivery operations via multiple, small UAS (sUAS). A cognitive walkthrough was chosen as the method for data collection. This allowed information to be gathered from UAS subject matter experts (SMEs) that could further mature designs for future human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulations;in addition, it allowed information to be collected remotely during the stringent restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, the described cognitive walkthrough activity utilized remote data collection protocols mediated through the usage of programs designed for presentation and telecommunications. Scenarios were designed, complete with airspace, contingencies, and remedial actions, to be presented to the SMEs. Information was collected using a combination of rating scales and open-ended questions. Results received from the SMEs revealed expected hazards, workloads, and information concerns inherent in the contingency scenarios. SMEs also provided insight into the design of GCS tools and displays as well as the duties and relationships of human operators (i.e., monitors) and automation (i.e., informers and flight managers). Implications of these findings are discussed. © 2021, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc.. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The continuous development of technical innovations provides the opportunity to create new economic markets and a wealth of new services. However, these innovations sometimes raise concerns, notably in terms of societal, safety, and environmental impacts. This is the case for services related to the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), which are emerging rapidly. Unmanned aerial vehicles, also called drones, date back to the first third of the twentieth century in aviation industry, when they were mostly used for military purposes. Nowadays, drones of various types and sizes are used for many purposes, such as precision agriculture, search and rescue missions, aerial photography, shipping and delivery, etc. Starting to operate in areas with low population density, drones are now looking for business in urban and suburban areas, in what is called urban air mobility (UAM). However, this rapid growth of the drone industry creates psychological fear of the unknown in some parts of society. Reducing this fear will play an important role in public acceptance of drone operations in urban areas. This paper presents the main concerns of society with regard to drone operations, as already captured in some public surveys, and proposes a list of mitigation measures to reduce these concerns. The proposed list is then analyzed, and its applicability to individual, urban, very large demonstration flights is explained, using the feedback from the CORUS-XUAM project. CORUS-XUAM will organize a set of very large drone flight demonstrations across seven European countries to investigate how to safely integrate drone operations into airspace with the support of the U-space.
ABSTRACT
When extracting flight data from airport terminal area, there are matters such as large volume, unclear features, and similar trend in time series. In order to deal with the related issues and to optimize the description, by combining with the TBO (Trajectory-Based Operation), an application proposed by the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) in ASBU (Aviation System Block Upgrade), using multisource dynamic model to establish 4DDW (4D dynamic warping) algorithm, the multisource modeling integrated with evaluation system is proposed to realize the flight path optimization with time series characteristics and accord with the interval concept. The calculation results show that 4DDW can obtain the optimal solution for multiprofile calculation of TBO by comparing the composite trajectory deviation values and time dimension planning using the buffer and threshold values recommended by ICAO in airspace planning and flight procedure design. The results meet the requirements of high accuracy and convergence features of spatial waypoints and can improve the airport operation standards and terminal area capacity.
ABSTRACT
After COVID-19, a full recovery compared to the 2019 situation with a subsequent growth of global air traffic is expected for the next three to six years [1]. Regarding carbon dioxide emissions, Coronavirus lockdown helped the environment to bounce back, but this will be a temporary situation. It is important to continue investigating additional mitigation measurements to achieve long-term environmental benefits, especially after the recovery. At that point, the question of how to reduce aviation's impact on the climate change will certainly arise again, and will re-gain its importance for the world-wide community. Since no fundamental breakthroughs in CO reduction in aviation are expected in the near future, research should focus on several measures to sustainably reduce the environmental impact of aviation. The air traffic management can contribute to an overall reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases by optimizing traffic flows not only towards maximum airspace capacity and maximum efficiency, but also increasingly towards minimum environmental impact. A set of concept elements that were investigated in the frame of the European-Chinese project Greener Air Traffic Operations (GreAT) can already constitute simple and suitable means towards a greener air traffic management. One of these concept elements is the 'Lowest Impact of Deviation' principle: Whenever two flights need to deviate from their most fuel-efficient route, speed or altitude due to de-conflicting, this deviation should be done by the flight with the lowest fuel consumption, and consequently, with the lowest amount of emissions produced with this maneuver. This principle is currently neither reflected in air traffic control regulations, nor in common practices. In the frame of the work presented in this paper, this principle has been further investigated and analyzed with a fast-time simulation, which models a free route airspace environment under ideal conditions. The flights are generated according to a configurable traffic density. De-conflicting is done automatically either by following the standard right of way rules, which also often serve as a guiding principle for air traffic controllers;or by following the 'Lowest Impact of Deviation' principle. Based on EUROCONTROL's Base of Aircraft Data (BADA), the simulation estimates the fuel consumption for each flight as well as for the whole simulation, and consequently also the CO emissions, as a function of traffic density.This paper gives basic information about the principle itself, which is then further tailored down and applied to a free route airspace environment for en-route traffic. It briefly describes the used fast time simulation and illustrates the obtained results. This paper quantifies the theoretical benefit that can be achieved by applying the mentioned principle in the described way. When knowing the traffic density of real air traffic control sectors, the results can easily and directly be transferred to them. © 2021 IEEE.