Modeling, Simulation, and Optimization of Advanced Air Traffic Procedures to Improve Oceanic Flights

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been modernizing the United States' air transportation system within a series of initiatives called the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). The goal of NextGen is to increase the safety, efficiency, capacity, predictability, and resiliency of American Air Traffic Control (ATC) by implementing satellite-based communication, and navigation systems. Because of the vast oceanic areas controlled by Oakland, New York, and Anchorage air traffic control centers, improving oceanic operations is significant for the United States. According to the FAA, oceanic flights generate 31% of passenger revenue and 40% of cargo revenue in U.S.-controlled airspace. New NextGen procedures offer the opportunity for aircraft to save fuel consumption by allowing oceanic flights to fly at more efficient routes and flight levels. This dissertation investigates three areas to improve flight operations over oceanic airspace. The first area studies the operational benefits of providing satellite-based meteorological information to aircraft operating in remote and oceanic airspace. This research effort uses two approaches as follows: 1) statistical flight analysis, and 2) simulation-based analysis. The second area provides an optimization technique to improve the current procedures for assigning flights to the Organized Track System (OTS) in the Atlantic Ocean based on the Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) concept. The third area investigates the potential savings of "In-Trail Procedure" (ITP) as one of the advanced surveillance operations in the Pacific and Atlantic oceanic airspace. To quantify the operational benefits of the proposed procedures, a fast-time simulation tool, the Global Oceanic (GO) model, is developed and employed. The GO model is a microscopic flight simulation tool that has been developing by the Air Transportation Systems Laboratory at Virginia Tech offering realistic and inexpensive evaluations of novel technologies and procedures to improve flight operations over global oceanic airspace. the results of these studies are analyzed in terms of fuel consumption, travel distance, travel time, level of service, and potential air traffic controllers' workload.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Civil Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Izadi, Arman

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Trani, Antonio A.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Abbas, Montasir M.
• Hotle, Susan
• Bish, Douglas R.

• Air Traffic Flow Management
• Oceanic Flights
• Convective Weather Avoidance
• Collaborative Decision Making
• In-Trail Procedure

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:26369

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/106936