Probabilistic Aircraft Conflict Detection in the Terminal Maneuvering Area

Understanding and managing weather uncertainty is a necessity that the future Air Traffic Management system must address to increase its capacity, efficiency and safety levels. In this paper, a methodology to tackle the problem of aircraft conflict detection in the terminal maneuvering area of an airport considering wind uncertainty is presented. The wind components are modelled as random processes, characterized by a nominal and a stochastic term. The problem of two aircraft following three-dimensional multi-segment converging trajectories in the same airspace is considered. The conflict is characterized by two indicators: the distance of closest approach between the aircraft, and the conflict probability. The statistical characterization of these conflict indicators is obtained using the Probabilistic Transformation Method. Numerical results are presented for a particular conflict scenario and an uncertain vertical wind profile, obtained from a high resolution numerical weather prediction model. The results are compared with those obtained with the Monte Carlo method.