Efficient conflict resolution method in air traffic management based on the speed assignment

An efficient conflict detection and resolution method for Air Traffic Management (ATM) under heavy traffic conditions is presented. The problem of assigning a speed profile to each aircraft in real time such that the separation between aircraft is greater than a given safety distance is considered and the total deviation from the initial planned trajectory is minimized. The proposed method involves the use of appropriate airspace discretization. The method consists of two steps: a search tree step, which finds if it exists a solution; and an optimization step by solving a QPproblem, which minimizes a cost function. The paper also presents simulations for several scenarios and experiments that have been carried out in the multivehicle aerial testbed of the Center for Advanced Aerospace Technologies (CATEC).