Probabilistic Aircraft Conflict Detection Considering Ensemble Weather Forecast

In this paper, the effects of wind uncertainty on the problem of conflict detection are analyzed. The wind components are modeled as random variables; the wind uncertainty is obtained from weather forecasts. The case of two en-route aircraft flying at constant altitude, constant airspeed, constant course, and subject to the same wind is considered. The conflict is caracterized by several indicators, such as the minimum distance between aircraft, the time to minimum distance, and the conflict probability. The analysis is based on the transformation of random variables, which evolves the wind probability density functions to obtain the probability density functions of the indicators. Numerical results are presented for a given particular scenario with uniformly-distributed winds.