Robust aircraft conflict resolution under trajectory prediction uncertainty
2022, Operations Research Letters, 50(5), pp.503-508
Mixed-integer optimization
Robust optimization
Aircraft conflict resolution
Trajectory prediction uncertainty
Air traffic control
Abstract
In air traffic control, aircraft velocity may be perturbed due to weather effects or measurements errors and affect trajectory prediction. We address the aircraft conflict resolution problem in the presence of such perturbations. We consider polyhedral uncertainty sets on aircraft velocity, develop a budgeted robust optimization approach and show that it is amenable to mixed-integer optimization. Numerical experiments reveal that perturbations of the order of 5% on aircraft velocities can be accounted for without significantly impacting performance.