A Sectorization Method for Dynamic Airspace Configuration

The Dynamic Airspace Configuration (DAC) concept requires strategically organizing and efficiently allocating airspace. In the current National Airspace System (NAS), sector boundaries have been developed heuristically over decades in light of historical data and analysis. In our previous efforts, a graph model based on air route structure was developed to model the en-route airspace over the U.S., and was partitioned using a spectral clustering algorithm. This paper addresses how to generate sectors with desirable geometry using the partitioned graph as an input. The minimum distance constraints are considered in our twostep algorithm. Instead of converting these constraints into a mathematical programming problem as most previous research has done, we treat the constraints satisfaction as a geometric problem. In correspondence to vertices assignments, an algorithm is first proposed that aims to compute non-overlapping convex hulls, while satisfying the constraints. Then, we develop a novel method using the shortest path searching algorithm to create smooth sector boundaries outside the convex hulls, where the desirable boundary is mathematically defined and computed. Finally, the performance of the proposed sectorization algorithm is demonstrated using the Enhanced Traffic Management System (ETMS) air traffic data.