Composite hermite curves for time-based aircraft spacing at meter fix

Abstract : The delegation to the flight crew of some tasks currently performed by air traffic controllers provides new perspectives potentially to increase air traffic control efficiency. More specifically, the task of establishing properly spaced landing sequences is very demanding in heavy traffic conditions for the air traffic controllers in charge of the terminal maneuvering area. Automatic merging operations could relieve air traffic controllers of providing time-consuming radar-vectoring instructions. The outcomes of this paper are twofold: firstly composite Hermite curves to generate a path with length and endpoint constraints are presented. This reference trajectory is used to stretch the path of an airliner in order to delay its arrival on a meter fix chosen by air traffic control. Secondly, the design of a nonlinear control law based on feedback linearization to track the reference trajectory is presented. This communication treats level flight, but wind is considered. The design is followed by two illustrative examples which show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.