A new trans-Atlantic route structure for strategic flight planning over the NAT airspace

Imen Dhief (1) , Nour Elhouda Dougui (1) , Daniel Delahaye (2) , Noureddine Hamdi (1)

1 HANAlab - Heterogeneous Advanced Networking and Applications [Manouba]
2 ENAC - Ecole Nationale de l'Aviation Civile

Air traffic across the North Atlantic airspace has witnessed an incessant increase over the last decades. However, the efficiency of trans-Atlantic air traffic management is still low nowadays due to the limited radar coverage. Automated Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast systems represents an opportunity to enhance the strategic flight planning over the oceans by reducing separation standards between aircraft. Besides, the strong winds present a challenge for oceanic flights. Therefore, flying on the wind-optimal routes will save significantly both fuel and time. In this paper, we propose a new trans-Atlantic route structure that benefits from the jetstreams in order to construct wind-optimal flight trajectories. Then, we introduce an optimization model for detecting and resolving conflicts. The analysis is carried out on real traffic data to prove the efficiency of the proposed method. Experimental findings show an improvement in terms of conflict resolution and induced delays.

Mots clés: NAT airspace; North Atlantic airspace; trans-Atlantic air traffic management; radar coverage; automated dependent surveillance-broadcast systems; separation standards; aircraft; oceanic flights; wind-optimal routes; jetstreams; wind-optimal flight trajectories; optimization model; strategic flight planning; trans-Atlantic route structure; conflict resolution; induced delays

Domaines: Mathématiques [math]; Optimisation et contrôle [math.OC]

Imen Dhief, Nour Elhouda Dougui, Daniel Delahaye, Noureddine Hamdi. A new trans-Atlantic route structure for strategic flight planning over the NAT airspace. CEC 2017 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation , Jun 2017, San Sebastian, Spain. pp.ISBN : 978-1-5090-4601-0, ⟨10.1109/CEC.2017.7969482⟩. ⟨hal-01587253⟩