Optimal configuration for intersecting flows of aircraft

This paper studies the configuration for intersecting flows of aircraft. Intersections of aircraft flows can be considered as basic building blocks for air traffic networks, and traffic networks can be designed through finding optimal arrangements of intersections whose conflict zones do not overlap. A conflict zone is defined as a minimal circular area centered at the intersection of two flows which allows aircraft approaching the intersections to resolve conflict completely within the conflict zone. This paper derives the relationship between the size of a conflict zone and the intersection angle of the two flows. Such a relationship guides to find an optimal configuration for intersecting aircraft flows. An example involving n converging flows of aircraft demonstrates the efficiency of the proposed configuration of intersections: the result of conflict resolution shows a greatly reduced traffic complexity compared with the solution derived from our previous study; the complexity metric is reduced from O(n4) to O(n2). © 2012 IEEE.